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Some Studies In Religion 



Portions of Christian Evidences Translated 

out of the Technical Terms of Theology 

into those of Popular Science 



BY THE 

Rev. Louis Tucker, M. A., 

•■■ 

Rector of Grace Church, St. Francisville La. 



Milwaukee 

THE YOUNG CHURCHMAN CO. 

1903 






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Copyright By 

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1903 



TABLE OF COXTEXTS. 

I. — Ox Technical Language - - - - 5 

II. — Ox the Nature of God - - - - 19 

III.— Ox Faith --------- 22 

IV. — A Theory of the Nature of God 31 

V. — Ox the Nature of Man - - - - 47 

VI. — Further Inquiry ixto the Nature 

of God --------- 60 

VII. — Eelatioxs between God axd Max 77 

VIII. — The Experimental Method ix Ke- 

ligiox --------- 95 

IX. — Tfie Nexus of Eelatiox - - - - ill 



CHAPTER I. 

OX TECHNICAL LANGUAGE. 

PERHAPS the hardest thing in the world 
is to get men who have been trained in 
the technical language of one pursuit, which 
they know thoroughly, to listen to ideas 
couched in the technical language of another 
pursuit which they dislike. Thus the anger 
of a sailor at a legal document and his de- 
spair of ever understanding it is only to be 
matched by the despairing anger of a judge 
who is expected to understand a series of 
rapidly-issued orders on shipboard; or the 
mental position of a soldier who has casually 
remarked to a farmer on the strategic value 
of a certain hill is to be compared only to that 
of the farmer who has failed to convey to the 
soldier any clear idea of the advantages of 
the same hill for raising turnips. It is, of 



6 SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION*. 

course, trite to point out that law and sailing 
are both valuable or that turnips and strategy 
have each their uses. 

The truths of the legal document, when 
stripped of their verbiage and laid before the 
sailor, interest him as fair and just; while 
a judge, having gotten a clear idea of the 
purpose of commands on ship-board, sees that 
they are what he would order done himself. 
Thus there seems an inborn sympathy in 
the normal human mind with truths of all 
kinds, even the truths of the most specialized 
and technical pursuits; together with an in- 
tense impatience of the pursuits themselves 
and especially of their technical language. 
Hence a conversation between a schoolma'am 
and a horse- jockey as to the real value of 
training would be likely to show genuine in- 
terest, together with much superficial misun- 
derstanding and annoyance. 

This mental repugnance to unfamiliar 
technicalities seems incurable. If the law- 
yer, to return to that illustration, wish to 
convey legal ideas to the sailor he must throw 



SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 7 

legal phrases to the wind, and put clear-cut 
technicalities into clumsy common speech. 
If the sailor explain sailing orders to the 
lawyer he must make plain in many devious 
sentences what is hit off in one word of his 
own lingo ; or else the sailor must study law 
and the lawyer sailing ; and both with a cer- 
tain impatience. 

Within the last two centuries, and es- 
pecially within the latter half of this present 
one, there has grown up a specialized body of 
men with a highly technical vocabulary and 
a sharply-defined mode of thought ; a body as 
remarkable for cultivation along some lines 
and neglect along others as were the barons 
of the feudal ages; steel-clad soldiers whose 
bravery and skill in war were beyond dispute, 
but whose ideas of letters and the rights of 
property were confused. This body of men, 
having specialized and in some sense created 
a mode of thought and expression, naturally 
listen with impatience to ideas couched in 
technical language foreign to their own. For 
their purposes their own language and mode 
of thought are best. 



b SOME STUDIES IIsT RELIGIOX. 

Now there grew up about eighteen cen- 
turies ago another specialized body of men, 
whose language and mode of thought have 
since become highly crystallized and tech- 
nical. These also are equally remarkable 
for cultivation along some lines and neglect 
along others, and they listen with equal im- 
patience to ideas expressed in a method for- 
eign to their own. Thus the scientist feels 
impatience with the theologian, and the theo- 
logian with the scientist. It would probably 
be trite to point out that the acts, such as the 
imprisonment of Galileo or the enthrone- 
ment of the Goddess of Reason in Notre 
Dame, into which this impatience has hur- 
ried the more violent of either side, however 
blameworthy they may be, do not in any way 
affect the abstract truth or falsehood of the 
belief of either party. Nor, indeed, does 
their much more common and therefore more 
regrettable abuse of each other. 

Yet a country clergyman, although lift- 
ing up his hands in holy horror, is really in- 
terested in the central truths of science ; and 



SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 9 

the professor of Biology, though with up- 
lifted hand and averted face he deprecate the 
hopelessly illogical assumptions of the theo- 
logian, is really interested in the central 
truths of religion. In fact there have not 
been wanting promptly suppressed spirits 
who dared refer to the proverb of the two 
sides of the shield and suggest that the two 
were identical. 

There exists, and has existed for ages, 
a mass of people, not theologians, whose ideas 
are cast in the theological mould of thought 
and expression; and there has sprung up 
within the last century a class, not scientists, 
whose ideas are cast in the scientific mould 
of expression and thought. Each feels in- 
terest in the truths of the opposite method, 
much as a sailor does in the justice and fair- 
ness which underlie the jargon of a good 
law; but each has a truly sailor-like impa- 
tience of that opposite method itself. Ob- 
viously, to convey the truths, that method 
should be dropped and as near an approach 
made to the other as is within the power of 



10 SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 

the writer. Such an attempt could not, in 
common justice, address itself to theologian 
or professor; any move toward teaching the 
teachers being at once illogical and assum- 
ing. But to those who are not teachers in 
either camp such an attempt might have the 
same interest that a poet's criticisms of 
poetry have to a critic, or a doctor's strug- 
gles to express a diagnosis in plain English 
have to the mourners. 

There seems, then, some opening for a 
work putting some of the trite and well- 
known truths of religion into scientific lan- 
guage and modes of thought. When it is 
remembered that science is well-arranged 
knowledge, and that all truth can be ar- 
ranged, it is seen that there should be no con- 
flict between the method and the subject. But 
the mental difficulty of taking alternately two 
points of view, of translating, so to speak, 
from one mental mode to another, is not 
small ; while even the best translation is not 
so good as the original. 

The ideal writer of such a work should 



SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 11 

plainly be a master of both modes of thought, 
the theological and the scientific. The worst 
permissible writer should at least be master 
of one. There may seem some logical 
objection in this to the making of such an 
attempt by one who is master of neither ; 
but when it is considered that the work in- 
volves the incurring of the strongest rebukes 
from those of both sides who love manner 
more than matter, and that its success is 
doubtful, it is evident that the less reputa- 
tion such a writer has to lose the better ; since 
his insignificance is no bar to the final success 
of the work if it really answer to a need of 
the times; while if it do not so answer a 
need, that same insignificance keeps it from 
doing harm and shelters the writer ; much as 
in the old days a midshipman was sent home 
in charge of a naval prize, since he could 
sail to port or, meeting an enemy's ship, 
could run away as well as a post-captain; 
while, if caught, a midshipman more or less 
was no great matter. 



CHAPTER II. 

OK" THE NATURE OF GOD. 

CO ONE who has read the introduction — 
prefaces and introductions, by the way, 
are usually left unread, for which reason 
they have been here printed as chapter one 
of the text — there has probably seemed a 
vague charm in the idea of the transference 
of theological facts into scientific language, 
but a very plain incoherence as to what facts 
are to be transferred and how to do it ; a prob- 
lem not unlike that of an African collector 
who wishes to transfer a choice selection of 
wild animals from the equatorial forests to 
his cages, but has not caught the animals. 
The difficulty of the transference of the facts 
is increased by a modern habit of religious 



SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 13 

teachers which may be illustrated as fol- 
lows : 

Let us imagine a young clergyman saying 
to himself: "The doctrine of sacraments is 
logically bound up with that of miracles and 
of the resurrection of the body ; but if I tell 
my people so, those who do not believe in 
miracles and doubt the Resurrection of the 
body will not come to Communion ; which is 
certainly a bad thing. Therefore, I had 
best keep quiet about the logical connection, 
and trust that their faith will be strengthened 
by repeated communions so that they can see 
it for themselves. " The motive is good, but 
when anyone attempts to give a logical theory 
of sacraments to such people, he is in the 
position of a professor who tries to explain 
the nebular hypothesis to a class of students 
who are incredulous concerning the theory 
of gravitation. 

This partial teaching is one of the reasons 
of the dislike for dogma. For the last fifty 
years it has seemed only necessary to brand 
a thing as a dogma in order to have most 



14 SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 

Christians, and all the rest of the world, re- 
gard it as a kind of horror. The origin of 
dogma would, perhaps, throw some light on 
the subject. The scientific method may be 
roughly defined as the collecting of all the 
known phenomena, and from them inferring 
an hypothesis ; which hypothesis, if it explain 
all new phenomena discovered, rises to the 
dignity of a theory ; which theory, until dis- 
proved, is treated as true. The theological 
method consists in collecting all known in- 
spired sayings on the subject, and from them 
inferring a doctrine ; which doctrine, if it 
explain all other inspired sayings afterward 
shown to bear on the subject, becomes a dog- 
ma; which dogma is declared true. Dis- 
senters from either dogma or theory are re- 
ceived by the orthodox with reproofs which, 
while different in degree, are probably not 
essentially different in kind. The inspired 
sayings being limited in number, the con- 
struction of dogma practically ceased some 
fifteen centuries ago; that is, the logical in- 
ferences were all drawn and tested. Differ- 



SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 15 

ent inferences from the same facts have since 
been drawn, but it is a question open to in- 
vestigation as to whether they are logical. 

It is plain that the omission of phenom- 
ena or of texts invalidates a dogma or a the- 
ory. Theology, by the way, assumes the 
existence of God and the inspiration of cer- 
tain documents; which assumptions, if un- 
verified, are of course unscientific. 

The partial teaching before complained 
of greatly hampers the work undertaken. 
For instance, to quote the Fathers as patient 
investigators to persons who look upon them 
as radiant saints or as fanatical monks, is 
of course lost labor. "They may be saints," 
says the Sunday School superintendent, "or 
religious maniacs/' says the medical student. 
"But," chime in both, "they are certainly not 
investigators." It is equally idle to speak of 
theology as the formulated deductions from 
practical religion to men who regard religion 
as theology put into practice; very much as 
they regard military drill as tactics put into 
practice, or Edison's experiments as the 



16 SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 

science of electricity put into practice; not 
seeing that the tactics sprang from the 
drill, and the science of electricity from 
the experiments. As a matter of fact 
theology sprang from religion, and religion 
is the name for the relations between God 
and man. 

Here, then, are four basic principles. If 
any one of them does not exist there is no 
possibility of theology. If there is no God 
or if man does not exist there can be 
no religion. If nothing is known of the 
nature of man or of the nature of God, the 
relations between them, or religion, must be 
unknown, and theology therefore unknown, 
also. 

Now the existence of man we may regard 
as proven — (As a matter of fact certain 
forms of philosophy doubt it). The nature 
of man can be investigated and submitted to 
experiment. The existence of God has been 
exhaustively and recently examined by the 
scientific method, Matthew Arnold coming 
to the conclusion that there is "A Power not 



SOME STUDIES IX RELIGION". 17 

ourselves that makes for righteousness/' and 
Herbert Spencer holding that there is an 
Unknowable, and speaking of it as "The 
power that manifests itself in the universe 
and in the consciousness as the Supreme 
Reality" ; and again, "An Infinite and 
Eternal Energy from which all things pro- 
ceed . . . the laws of nature being the 
modes of action of the Unknowable." 

It is noteworthy that he denies that this 
Unknowable is a person, not because its na- 
ture is lower but because it is higher than 
personality; "Personality" being therefore 
an unworthy term to apply to it. 

There is a certain element of humor in 
such an investigation not unlike that which 
would be found in an attempt to measure the 
distance of a fixed star in inches; and a 
certain Biblical ring about the conclusions 
which recalls such sayings as, "Righteous art 
Thou, O Lord" ( Jer. xii. 1) ; "Canst thou 
by searching find out God?" (Job) ; "With- 
out Him was not anything made that was 
made" (Jno. i.). But this, of course, is 



18 SOME STUDIES 13" RELIGION. 

mere accident. For our purpose it is enough 
that it is not unscientific to say that there is 
an Infinite and Eternal Energy from which 
all things proceed; which energy appears 
to "Make for righteousness," whatever that 
may mean ; and of course there must be some 
relation between man on the one side and this 
Infinite and Eternal Energy on the other. 
If anything can be known about this relation 
the knowledge can be arranged, and when 
arranged becomes science or theology, which- 
ever you like ; the two being in this case two 
names for the same thing. 

So far this work has been plain enough. 
Theological writers have so often and so 
justly been accused of assuming unverified 
premises, and triumphantly building up log- 
ical arguments on a false basis and then de- 
claring that their conclusions are true, that 
the attempt has been made here to assume 
nothing that may not fairly be called a scien- 
tific conclusion. The reason is plain. Sup- 
pose a New York policeman to be arguing 
with a Polish anarchist — if the imagination 



SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 19 

can grasp such a case. The policeman as- 
sumes that Government has the right to pre- 
vent law-breaking and with triumphant logic 
proves that the anarchist, who has been 
smashing windows, should be arrested. The 
logic is unanswerable — provided that Gov- 
ernment has such a right. But the anarchist, 
whose rioting w^as undertaken to emphasize 
his belief that Government has not such a 
right, is not only unconvinced, but angered 
by his arrest. In like manner any argument 
which assumes a fact denied by science is 
quite useless when addressed to scientists. 

But to return to the fourth of the basic 
principles mentioned — the nature of the Un- 
knowable. Is it possible to know anything 
about the Unknowable % It will be taken as 
a contradiction in terms amounting to sheer 
impudence to answer "Yes." 

This contradiction, it will be noted, is 
found in Christianity, which tells us that 
the nature of God is deep, past all under- 
standing, and that no man can know Him; 
and in the same breath gives us a whole Bible 



20 SOME STUDIES IX RELIGION. 

full of information about Him, including 
minute statements of what He will do to us 
under certain circumstances. The same con- 
tradiction is also found in Science, which de- 
clares that force is based on the Infinite and 
Eternal Energy, that the attraction of grav- 
itation, for instance, is utterly unexplained 
and a mode of action of the Unknowable. 
We are not sure that it is an attraction, and 
we do not know what gravitation is ; and yet 
we have concise laws of its nature and as- 
tronomies full of minute statements of what 
it does to us under certain circumstances. 
Therefore this contradiction, since it is 
found in science, cannot be really unscien- 
tific. 

An analogy to this is not impossible. Let 
us suppose ourselves in a court-room, spec- 
tators of a trial in which a lawyer who is a 
personal friend of ours is speaking. Another 
lawyer, who is unknown to us, has been 
jumping up and interrupting his speech in 
a way we do not understand, but feel sure 
must be illegal. Our friend sits down, the 



SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 21 

other lawyer begins a speech, and, lo, our 
friend also jumps up and interrupts. We 
are at once assured of the legality of inter- 
ruptions. We will suppose, then, that it is 
not unscientific to hold that something can 
be known about the Unknowable, and that 
therefore some form of theology is possible. 



CHAPTEE III. 



OST FAITH. 



BEFORE we can make any advance in re- 
ligion or theology we are told that we 
must have faith. Why any man with brains 
can assent to an absurdity like this the man 
of scientific training cannot see, since it 
amounts — he says — to saying that before the- 
ology can prove anything to us, we must be- 
lieve the thing it is going to prove; a great 
saving of labor, but hostile to the scientific 
method. 

The theologian is naturally impatient of 
scientific criticisms of theology for the reason 
that they omit faith. Why any man with 
brains can logically criticise a conclusion 
when he has left out one of the reasons for it, 
they fail to see. Eor example, one of the 



SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 23 

conditions of answered prayer is faith. That 
a man not having faith can complain that 
prayers are unanswered, seems to him as 
illogical as that a mathematician, who is ex- 
amining the proposition that one two and 
three added together make six, should call 
it false because one and three do not make 
six, but four, and he has refused to count 
the two in. 

This clash of opinions is fortunately due 
to differences in mode of thought and tech- 
nical expression, and not to the nature of 
faith. The theological method, as well as the 
scientific, requires what is sometimes called 
"Scientific Imagination/' — which seems 
to be a certain logical vividness of mind. 
Thus the earlier biologists knew perfectly 
well a mass of biological facts, and could 
make neither head nor tail of them. Dar- 
win, with the same facts before him, formu- 
lated the theory of evolution. 

But behind the scientific imagination lies 
another mental quality — an acceptance of 
the facts. 'No scientist has ever verified 



24 SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 

every experiment upon which he bases his 
investigations. Darwin, for instance, never 
verified by personal observation every anec- 
dote of the actions of wild animals which he 
uses. The ordinary popular writers on evo- 
lution have not personally verified one-tenth 
of Darwin's own experiments. A certain 
common-sense acceptance of other men's ex- 
periments and statements is not unscientific. 

There is a third mental quality presup- 
posed in the scientific method — a desire and 
love for truth. This may be a mere senti- 
ment which leads a man to read scientific 
works : or it may be a grand and boundless 
enthusiasm, such as has made many a man 
lay down his life for his convictions and has 
produced martyrs of science who laughed at 
death as a light thing in comparison with 
truth ; and this too is a mental quality neces- 
sary to the success of the scientific method. 

Js T ow these three mental qualities have 
no name in scientific language that includes 
them all. In religious language there is one 
word that means all three : and that word is 



SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 25 

"Faith." A mental condition that does not 
shrink frorn considering any, even the most 
seemingly improbable, hypothesis which will 
explain the facts ; that accepts the facts them- 
selves on reputable human evidence verified 
wherever possible; and that has a real love 
for truth strong enough to influence the 
man's life; such a mental state is necessary 
to the existence not only of the religious but 
also of the scientific method ; and in the lan- 
guage of the religious method it is called 
"Faith." 

This subject of "Faith" was at one time 
a great annoyance to the scientific mind and 
to that part of popular opinion which that 
mind moulds, because of a mistake often 
made by parish priests and other teachers of 
theological truth. In like manner the term 
"Unscientific" is a great annoyance to re- 
ligious people on account of a mistake often 
made by scientists. An illustration of the 
mistake is easy. 

An old woman entered a train and 
planted herself and her bundles by a window. 



26 SOME STUDIES I^T RELIGION. 

When the conductor took her ticket she asked 
him to tell her when she got to Decatur. On 
his return through the car she asked him 
again. Both times he courteously assured 
her that he would. On his next trip through 
the train she asked him if they had not 
passed the place, and was told that they had 
not. She repeated the question five minutes 
later, and was again calmed by the assurance 
that they had not passed it. With great nerv- 
ous anxiety she asked it again on his next ap- 
pearance, and was again calmed as before. 
She repeated this some six or eight times, 
the conductor calming her with an author- 
itative assurance each time. 

A gentleman on the next seat, seeing that 
the time of arrival at a certain station was 
later than that given in his time-table, asked 
the conductor if the train was on time and 
was told that it was. He pointed out the 
difference between printed and real time of 
arrival, and was still told, with some show of 
temper, that the train was on time. He was 
annoyed at this and later on complained of 



SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 27 

it to the superintendent of the road, learning 
then that the schedule had just been changed, 
and his time-table was wrong. 

The doubt of the old woman was irration- 
al and emotional. It was quieted by author- 
itative assertion of the opposite. The doubt 
of the man was rational and sensible. It 
was not quieted by mere assertion, but re- 
quired reasons. The conductor failed to dis- 
criminate between rational and irrational 
doubt, and met both with assertion. 

Now, in both religious and scientific af- 
fairs, irrational and emotional doubt can 
only be met by assertion. The thing is true 
and must be believed; and the defying of 
the irrational doubt and believing in spite 
of it is an act of scientific perception — or, 
in religious matters, an act of faith. For 
instance, in Haggard's novel, King Solo- 
mons Mines, an account is given of a party 
of Englishmen (it is an old but vivid lit- 
erary device) who staked their lives on the 
occurrence of an eclipse foretold in a nautical 
almanac. Thev had most uncomfortable 



28 SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 

doubts as to the accuracy of the mathemat- 
ical calculations in the almanac, but they 
stifled those doubts and went on in spite of 
them. This was an act of scientific judg- 
ment — good common-sense belief in the ac- 
curacy of mathematics ; but in what way does 
it differ from an act of faith \ 

Now, scientific men — University profes- 
sors, for instance — having continually to deal 
with absurd and windy objections to their 
discoveries, dub such objections "Unscien- 
tific" and answer them, as they should be 
answered, by showing that the objector 
knows nothing of the rudiments of science 
and lacks scientific perception. Occasion- 
ally, as might be expected, they make a mis- 
take and answer some sensible and valid ob- 
jection in the same way instead of answering 
it by sound reason. In such a case they are 
wrong; and not infrequently are publicly 
proved to be wrong. In the same way theo- 
logians and clergymen have continually to 
deal with senseless and irrational doubts 
and answer them, as they should be answered, 



SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 2d 

by saying that the doubter does not know his 
Bible and lacks faith; and they also often 
make mistakes, and try to answer rational 
and sensible doubts by assertion, and the 
statement that the doubter lacks faith. They 
are naturally often publicly proved wrong in 
this. 

In both cases the mistake is a confusion 
between emotional and rational doubt; the 
proper answer for emotional doubt being 
assertion, and for rational doubt being argu- 
ment. Thus, when a man in a Bible class 
objects to miracles that they break the con- 
tinuity of nature and hence are impossible, 
the objection is a rational argument from 
analogy, and is to be met by showing that 
they do not break the continuity of nature. 
But when another man objects that they are 
incredible and therefore impossible, the ob- 
jection is irrational (Mill's Logic, Fallacies, 
Chap. iii. § 3.), and to be met by assertion. 
For the fact that we cannot conceive of a 
thing is no proof of the impossibility of the 
thing itself: as is shown sadly enough every 



30 SOME STUDIES IN KELIGIOX. 

day by innocent children who cannot con- 
ceive of the world's evil till they suffer 
from it. 

One element of faith is an enthusiastic 
love for truth. When, upon investigation, 
truth is found to be inseparably connected 
with a Person, the enthusiastic love for 
truth becomes an enthusiastic love for and 
belief in that Person. It logically follows 
(the scientific method is the method of logical 
reasoning) that the sayings of that Per- 
son are to be implicitly obeyed and acted 
upon: which is the Christian position as to 
faith. 

Faith, then, may be defined as a mental 
condition which shrinks from no hypothesis, 
however startling, if it logically explain the 
facts ; which receives the facts themselves on 
reputable human evidence verified wherever 
possible ; and which shows an enthusiastic 
love for truth. And this mental condition is 
self-evidently necessary, not only for enter- 
ing upon the study of religion, but upon that 
of science. 



CHAPTER IV. 



A THEORY OE THE MATURE OF GOD. 

CHERE is a fact which Mr. Herbert 
Spencer and the prophet Isaiah, work- 
ing apparently quite independently of each 
other, have been equally anxious to impress 
upon their several generations : namely, that 
what Herbert Spencer calls the Anthropo- 
morphic, what Isaiah calls the Heathen, and 
what we may for convenience call the Pop- 
ular idea of God, is in fact false. Mr. Rob- 
ert Ingersoll did much good in this matter by 
pointing out the various absurdities, illog- 
ical statements, and contradictions which the 
popular idea of God involves. But it is to 
be regretted that he allowed many to go away 
from his lectures with the feeling that all 
their ideas of God are false, and that there- 



32 SOME STUDIES IX RELIGION. 

fore there is no Gocl : which might not inaptly 
be compared to a number of farmers who, 
having heard a sailor talk of the ocean in a 
way that upset all their ideas about it, drove 
away from the village store with the convic- 
tion that there is no ocean at all, and that 
the world is all land. 

This false popular or anthropomorphic 
idea of God can be best explained by an illus- 
tration. Let us take some great and good 
man — George Washington, for instance. Let 
us suppose this man to die and become a 
spirit; to be rid of his body, but not to be 
changed in any other way. Let us suppose 
this spirit to study the universe until he 
knows all about everything in it. Since he 
knows all about everything he will know how 
to do everything, even how to be present 
everywhere. He was a just and a merciful 
man; let us suppose him to become so just 
and so merciful a spirit that there is no limit 
to those qualities. In conclusion, let us over- 
come the logical difficulties, and suppose that 
he goes off somewhere and makes a world. 



SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 33 

Such a supposed spirit would be the 
maker of a world and present everywhere. 
His knowledge, power, justice, and mercy 
would be infinite. In all other respects he 
would be a man like ourselves. 

This is, roughly speaking, the popular 
idea of God. It is held directly or by impli- 
cation by nine-tenths of Christendom. It is 
taught implicitly or explicitly from almost 
every pulpit. And it is denounced by Her- 
bert Spencer as anthropomorphic and by the 
Bible as heathen. 

He in whom there is no variableness nor 
any shadow of turning is not changeable as 
human beings are, nor is He to be pro- 
pitiated, offended, or conciliated as human 
beings are conciliated or offended. He 
neither rewards nor punishes in the human 
sense of those terms. He is above and be- 
yond human understanding and human meas- 
urement and man's conception. He is un- 
knowable, and the term personality does not 
apply to Him any more than the term planet 
applies to the sun, or the term river applies 



34 SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 

to the ocean. The sun is not a planet; but 
is greater than one. The universe is not the 
solar system; but includes it. The ocean is 
not a river; though it gathers all rivers into 
itself. In the same sense the Unknowable is 
not a person ; but is something greater. It is 
greater than we are along the lines of acting 
and feeling and thinking. 

When a scientist obtains a number of 
facts about an unknown thing he proceeds 
to construct an hypothesis as to the nature 
of the thing which will explain the facts ; and 
he tests that hypothesis by any other facts 
which present themselves. 

It is not impossible that the insolence 
of an attempt to apply this method to a study 
of the Unknowable may attract some atten- 
tion not unlike that attracted by the first 
astronomical proposals to weigh and measure 
the sun. Yet it is also not impossible that a 
logical hypothesis which explains the known 
facts in regard to the Unknowable has been 
formulated, even as the sun has been weighed 
and measured. The facts have been touched 



SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 35 

upon. Is there any hypothesis that will ex- 
plain them ? 

Let us assume an hypothesis as to the na- 
ture of the Unknowable, and test it by the 
observed facts. 

It would be idle to represent the hypoth- 
esis here assumed as really deduced by the 
writer from the facts mentioned. It can be 
so deduced and the deduction seems to have 
been foreshadowed, as have many of the other 
primary truths of theology, by the Indo- 
Aryan Buddhists and Brahmans. But as a 
matter of fact the hypothesis seems to have 
been first advanced by a man named John, 
who is now known as Saint John; and it is 
borrowed here since the source of any hy- 
pothesis in no way affects its scientific truth 
or falsehood. The hypothesis itself (stated 
by St. John as a revealed truth, which is of 
course an unscientific way of putting it) is 
this— "God is Love." 

Let us provisionally assume, then, that 
this Thing, this Infinite and Eternal Energy, 



36 SOME STUDIES IX RELIGION. 

"which is the source of all power and the basis 
of all personality and knowledge, is Love. 

Of the way that this view of the nature 
of God transforms the world to a man it 
would be unscientific to speak, since the 
scientific method refuses to consider emotions 
and feelings and requires facts. It is per- 
haps worth remark that emotions and feel- 
ings are important phenomena of existence 
and that any method which refuses to con- 
sider important phenomena of existence is 
somew r hat unscientific. The matter is not 
without an element of humor on this ac- 
count, as also on account of the contrast be- 
tween the logical deductions from St. John's 
hypothesis and the usual and illogical ones 
made by men to whom it is first presented: 
■which may be parallelled by the illogical de- 
duction made by a Russian immigrant from 
that clause in the Constitution of the United 
States which says that all men are born free 
and equal — namely, that he may invite him- 
self to dine with the President ; and the log- 
ical deduction — which puts a guard at the 



SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 37 

door that the President may eat his dinner 
in peace. 

Let us, however, test this hypothesis that 
the Infinite and Eternal Energy is Love. 

It would be idle to claim that the tests 
to follow are in any way conclusive, being 
as they are too few in number to establish 
any certainty; but they will serve to point 
out the line along which other tests are pos- 
sible. We know something about Love. We 
do not know what it is, and we often and wil- 
fully confuse it with passion and lust; but 
every man who has had father or mother or 
child, knows something of its real nature 
and how it acts. Thus, if the hypothesis be 
correct, the nature of the Unknowable is not 
something outside of human reach, but can be 
investigated by experiment. It can, if men 
do not shrink from such treatment of such a 
thing, be studied by the scientific method. 

It may or may not be wise to note here 
the usual and popular confusion of terms 
by which the word "Love" is applied not 
infrequently to phenomena of passion, of 



38 SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 

selfishness, or of lust. A man of intellect is 
free from such confusion, and to men with- 
out intellect it would probably be useless to 
point it out. 

Perhaps the plainest logical inference 
from the hypothesis is that of law. We 
know by observation that when love does any- 
thing it does it in the best way it knows. As 
we are dealing with an Infinite Intelligence 
we see that the best way It knows is also 
absolutely the best way. When It comes to 
do the same thing over again It does it again 
in the best way. But there are not two ab- 
solutely best ways to do the same thing, so 
It does it in the same way. We call this 
repeating of the same way of doing a thing 
a law of nature. 

Mr. Herbert Spencer concludes that 
"The laws of nature are the modes of action 
of the Unknowable." The hypothesis agrees 
with this and adds to it a reason why the 
modes of action of the Unknowable are al- 
ways the same. If it were necessary to add 
emphasis to the teaching of science as to the 



SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 39 

"Invariable sequence of phenomena/' "The 
continuity of nature/' "The reign of Law/' 
theology could do so. 

This hypothesis also explains the exist- 
ence of man and of evil and the toleration 
of evil men by an infinite power hostile to 
evil; for we know experimentally that love 
desires answering love — if the statement be 
doubted it can be submitted to experiment. 
Hence the existence by evolution or creation 
(evolution is one of many possible modes 
of creation) of beings possessing the ability 
to love; ourselves, for instance. 

We know experimentally that a forced 
love (the phrase is a contradiction in terms, 
but not in fact) is not satisfactory to the 
receiver. It must be voluntary and capable 
of being withheld. Hence these beings pos- 
sessing the ability to love are necessarily so 
made that they have the power of choice and 
a field for choice — the power to withhold love 
without forfeiting existence. By the law of 
chances (a scientific principle) we are as- 
sured that some of these beings will exercise 



40 SOME STUDIES lis RELIGION. 

that power adversely. Thus by the hypoth- 
esis the mystery of evil is reduced to facts 
of ordinary experience, and incidentally a 
definition of evil is furnished. Beings hav- 
ing the ability to love are necessarily so or- 
ganized, as has been pointed out above, that 
they have the power of choice and a field for 
choice ; that is, that they have both the ability 
and the opportunity to do things contrary 
to the will of God. Evil is the exercise of 
that power by choosing and doing those con- 
trary things. Conversely, good is the exer- 
cise of that power by choosing and doing 
things not contrary. 

As to the toleration of evil men by an 
infinite power hostile to evil, we know exper- 
imentally — the case of a father and a prod- 
igal son is a trite but accurate example — 
that the being which refuses to love its 
Maker is not hated and not destroyed; but 
is restricted in powder and permitted to exist ; 
and loved none the less because of its disobe- 
dience, only loved differently, with sorrow 
mingled in the loving. Hence the hypoth- 



SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 41 

esis that God is Love explains the existence 
of men, and of evil in men, and the creation 
of a universe so arranged as to give us the 
opportunity to do evil — facts which we have 
observed and which we can explain upon no 
other hypothesis. Since God is Love, evil 
is a discord of some person with the Infinite 
and Eternal Energy. Since both parties are 
sentient this discord causes pain to both : and 
greater pain to the greater party. In this — 
the causing of pain to Infinite Love — lies the 
sinfulness of sin: just as the fault of a boy's 
running away to sea lies not in the going to 
sea — which may be a good thing — but in the 
pain inflicted upon those who love him. 

It is noteworthy that the tests applied 
to the hypothesis that God is Love have so 
far been its solution of problems which, al- 
though recognized by science, may (except 
the first) fairly be called theological. It 
might be pleaded that this is a fair applica- 
tion. An hypothesis dealing with one branch 
of science cannot fairly be required to ex- 
plain problems in another branch, but only in 



42 SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 

its own. For instance, a naturalist's hypoth- 
esis as to the origin of species cannot fairly 
be expected to solve for an astronomer vexed 
questions in spectrum analysis, nor can an 
hypothesis as to the nature of God be called 
upon to stand or fall by laboratory experi- 
ments in inorganic or even in organic chem- 
istry. It can be tested by experiment, but 
the experiments must be in its own depart- 
ment. 

It will be observed that only three tests 
of the hypothesis that the Infinite and Eter- 
nal Energy from which all things proceed is 
love have been given. Scientifically to estab- 
lish the hypothesis, it would be necessary to 
test it by every fact known as to the nature of 
the Unknowable. This has been done in the- 
ology and also in practical or "experimental'' 
religion from which theology springs, in a 
way analogous to the tests which verified the 
undulatory theory of light; but the results 
are recorded in technical theological lan- 
guage in theological books and especially 
books of devotion: with which literature mod- 



SOME STUDIES IIST RELIGION. 43 

era science is rather impatient than familiar. 
It is self -evidently impossible to repeat those 
tests here, both because of the space required, 
and also because the purpose of this work is 
merely to translate the A B C of theological 
doctrine from one technical mode of thought 
and expression to another. Enough has, 
however, been given to outline the method of 
examination. 

One out of many lines of investigation, 
however, may be noted: that of prayer. 
When a prayer is unanswered it proves noth- 
ing, for one of the requisites of answered 
prayer is faith, and faith is a variable and 
unregistered element which may be wholly 
lacking. When a prayer, on the contrary, 
is answered it proves nothing, for coinci- 
dences are common. Thus whether any sin- 
gle prayer is answered or unanswered, has no 
bearing on the question. 

Take a man, however, who is striving 
for what he wishes, and record his successes 
and failures. They vary with the circum- 
stances and the ability and energy of the 



44 SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 

man, but the percentage of success rarely 
reaches fifty. Usually it is below forty. 
Most such men fail in nearly two-thirds of 
what they undertake. 

Let this man adopt as a working hypoth- 
esis the idea that there is a God who answers 
prayer, and continue his work, praying for 
what he wants. Record his successes and 
failures. They vary with the ability, energy, 
and opportunities of the man, but the per- 
centage of successes rarely falls below fifty. 
Usually it is above sixty. Such a man suc- 
ceeds in nearly two-thirds of what he under- 
takes. This experiment has been repeated 
for centuries. It is tried by nearly every 
"converted" man. It is trying now. Its 
results are recorded in hundreds of books of 
devotion — unknown to science. But the ex- 
periment is open to anyone to try. Is it to 
be wondered at, that to those who are famil- 
iar with its success, the position of men who 
doubt that there is a God who answers 
prayer, is remarkably like that of the negro 
preacher who holds that the earth is flat and 
that "The sun do move !" ? 



SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. *0 

It is worth notice that St. John's hypoth- 
esis no more furnishes ultimate explanations 
of the problems mentioned than the theory 
of gravitation furnishes an ultimate explan- 
ation of the movements of the stars. We 
are not sure that it is an attraction, and we 
do not know what gravitation is. But just 
as the theory of the attraction of gravitation 
enables us to solve innumerable problems as 
to star-movements, and can be studied and 
experimented with on earth, so St. John's 
hypothesis enables us to solve innumerable 
problems as to the actions of the Unknow- 
able, and is subject to earthly experiment. 

The matter may be carried back a step 
further when we inquire what "Love" is ; 
for though human research as yet gives no 
answer, it has found that real love (the 
phrase is used to shut out the loose applica- 
tion of the word) is invariably connected 
with what we call self-sacrifice ; a fact which 
the newly-coined word "Altruism" expresses 
in a shadowy way. We do not know that 
love is self-sacrifice. We do not know that 



46 SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 

self-sacrifice is love. But we do know that 
they are invariably found together. This 
self-sacrifice, however, as has been pointed 
out in another connection by many pessim- 
istic philosophers, is not really pain-giving 
but joy-giving, not sacrifice in the usual 
sense, but happiness: so that a third thing 
that accompanies the two is joy. 



CHAPTEE V. 

( 

ON THE NATURE OF MAN. 

TT WAS with a natural wonder, not un- 
like that of a backwoodsman at a circus, 
that the world stood agape a few years since 
on hearing from grave and irreligious pro- 
fessors that immortality was very common 
upon earth — that, in fact, in every frog-pond 
are beings, millions of years old, to whom 
death is an unknown thing except by violence 
or accident. To be sure the wonder was some- 
what dimmed when we learned that these 
beings were bits of living jelly — Amoebae — 
but the fact remains that there are such bits 
of live jelly dignified by a name, which when 
they grow larger than convenient split in 
two and each half swims off, a perfect being. 
Each has thus been alive since the creation; 



48 SOME STUDIES IN KEEIGION. 

and those that do not meet violence or acci- 
dent will be alive at the "day of judgment." 

It is a matter not without its pleasing 
side to know that life started immortal. 
Death was an innovation — a later develop- 
ment. Its introduction tremendously hast- 
ened the process of evolution ; but it is not in 
itself a necessary adjunct to life. By rue- 
ful experience we have come to think of it 
as part of the foundation of things ; but as a 
matter of fact it is an innovation. 

The practical point in the matter, how- 
ever, is that the innovation has gotten hold 
of us. We must die. We are accustomed 
to look on this as natural, but in the deepest 
sense it is abnormal and unnatural. 

Every good biologist hopes that in time 
stress of competition will evolve a being 
which can adjust itself to all changes of the 
external world. We all look for that happy 
outcome of the doctrine of the survival of the 
fittest, a perfected race. Some great world- 
disaster may intervene, but if it does not, 
every good and faithful materialist looks for 



SOME STUDIES IIST RELIGION. 49 

the time when, by continual survival of the 
fittest, the race shall have become so fit that it 
can guard against all changes and thus elim- 
inate death. In the meantime, however, we 
ourselves are not fit, and must go down, and 
it is with only a melancholy pleasure that we 
can congratulate ourselves upon the glorious 
destiny of the race ; much as a man who has 
missed his train can congratulate himself 
that the train will get there anyhow. 

In short, as we and every other individ- 
ual of the race that lives or has ever lived 
are among the unfit, the chance of final death- 
lessness of the race is of little or no interest 
to us. It does not concern us personally. 
By the mismanagement of someone, or it may 
be by a combination of impersonal laws of 
nature, we are condemned to die ; and as we 
have a strong dislike for dying, we could 
wish to find some way to escape that imported 
and abnormal fate. 

The matter is complicated by the fact 
that we have inherited a certain inborn twist 
or inclination towards violating the laws of 



50 SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 

nature ; not only the physical, but even more 
so that section of the laws of nature which 
we usually call the moral law. The out- 
come of this violation is a lack of harmony 
with our surroundings — an inability to adapt 
ourselves to certain changes in them. When 
theses changes chance to occur the organism 
is eliminated; that is, we die. The exist- 
ence of this inborn twist toward breaking 
the laws of nature is a matter which can be 
and is submitted to experiment. Like all 
degenerative tendencies it is progressive; 
vieldins; to it increases it. The materialist 
explains it as a survival of the instincts of 
our animal ancestors, and points out that by 
process of evolution the race will be freed 
from it in time. This, however, does not 
personally concern us, for we have it, cannot 
hope to escape from it, and shall at last be 
destroyed by it. It, too, seems to be an inno- 
vation, since its invariable observed result 
Is death and the amoebae do not die. What 
we could wish would be some method of evo- 
lution, not of the race, but of the individual, 



SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 51 

by which to eliminate from our own organism 
this twist, so that we might have no inborn 
tendency to break the laws of nature. If 
this could be done we should, like our distant 
ancestors the amoebae, be potentially im- 
mortal. 

The unfortunate condition of partially 
evolved man — that is of ourselves — is made 
worse by a lurking feeling that the body is 
not all of us. It would be much more com- 
fortable to die and be done. Life would be 
simpler if we could be sure that death ended 
it. In the earliest savage ages of mankind, 
when the power to collect observed facts and 
draw deductions from them was still small, 
this seems to have been the usual opinion 
and man lived down to it. Very early, how- 
ever, its certainty began to be doubted. A 
number of observed facts seemed to hint that 
man is more than mere body. The phenom- 
ena of consciousness, the curious instinct of 
guilt after those violations of the laws of na- 
ture which we call "sins," and, in another 
sphere, the fact that a man's body is built up 



52 SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 

of food eaten in the past and that its sub- 
stance is often changed, yet he is still the 
same man — these, with many other facts, 
when collated and compared, led to a strong 
presumption that man is something more 
than his material body. "The Soul" has 
never been discovered by chemical analysis 
or found in the dssecting room; but neither 
has "A Thought," or "Life." Yet life and 
thought exist. This non-discovery may be 
because chemical and anatomical investiga- 
tion has mostly dealt with specimens without 
thought and from which the soul and life 
have fled — namely, with corpses ; which 
might not inaptly be compared to an investi- 
gation settling that there are no such things 
as oysters because the oyster shells in city 
trash-barrels are invariably found empty. 

This hypothesis — that man has a soul — 
explains so many facts which can be ex- 
plained in no other way that it is the gener- 
ally accepted opinion all the world over. 
The great World-religions, Heathen as well 
as Christian, all agree on man's having a 



SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 53 

soul because it is the best working hypothesis 
yet found to explain the observed facts. 
They disagree on so many things, by the way, 
that anything they agree on must have con- 
siderable evidence for it. 

It is perhaps worth remark that the exist- 
ence of the soul is here spoken of as an 
hypothesis. Many scientific men deny its 
existence as a fact, because the scientific ver- 
dict about it is that it is "not proven," but 
the logical fault in such reasoning is plain. 
Moreover, to any person noting only empty 
oyster-shells, the existence of oysters is "not 
proven." There can be no doubt that whether 
proven or not it explains more of the ob- 
served facts about man than any other 
hypothesis known to us; and it is a good 
scientific principle to adopt the thing that 
best explains the facts for a working hypoth- 
esis ; at least until a better one is found. 

We have to face, then, the somewhat un- 
comfortable probability that man has a soul. 
This complicates life. It would be much 
simpler to live if it were certain that we were 



54 SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 

soulless. We could then gratify certain mor- 
bid tastes which we have all inherited or ac- 
quired, and which lead' us to break the laws 
of nature, knowing that the worst that could 
happen to us would be to die and be done 
with life a little sooner than otherwise. As 
it is, however, the weight of evidence goes to 
show that man exists after death; and an 
eternity spent in gratifying morbid desires 
which break natural laws, and in bearing the 
punishments nature always inflicts for her 
laws when broken, is as terrible as the most 
lurid pulpit descriptions of hell. The prac- 
tical concensus of opinion of mankind is that 
the evidence is strong enough to make the 
risk too great to run ; and as a result the vast 
majority of mankind is engaged in more or 
less successfully combating those morbid de- 
sires or that innate twist toward breaking 
the laws of nature. 

There is, of course, a bright side to the 
possibilities of the case. By practical ex- 
periment we know that we are unable to rival 
the deathlessness of the amoebae, and must 



SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 55 

die. What we should like would be some 
method of evolution, not of the race but of 
ourselves, by which we could get rid of this 
morbid twist toward breaking the laws of 
nature; but we have found by experiment 
that death cuts the process short. There are 
several methods by which it is claimed that 
men may advance some way along the path 
of this personal evolution, but none of us 
has time to reach the goal. We die first. 
If, however, death does not annihilate a man, 
there is room for the process to continue, 
so that in time he may become free from this 
morbid twist inherited or acquired, and may 
stand, free, without any wish to violate nat- 
ural laws. Such a man or "Soul" would 
be in a most enviable position; happy, be- 
cause not in conflict with any law of nature, 
and free to make an unbiased scientific in- 
vestigation of the Cosmos and, as accurate 
knowledge gives power, able in time to con- 
trol it even to the point of assuming a body 
again, and also able to gain some knowledge 
of the Infinite and Eternal Energy which 
supports it. 



SOME - _ .DIES XX I2FT.TGI*: 1" 

It is worth, incidental mention that 

"_ — 7 :_t"_: i= :: -_r:~ :-:-.'. t~ :.■.:::::: ir-f ill 
~::-_1t- :: :lf pr~> TiTf iifi :_^: 1t/"Ji 
ends all he correct. We hare proved by ex- 

;t:;_t^" :1j.: z :_t _:? -:/_t rillj :: ivs: 
out from his nature the tendency to break 
natural laws*. Death comes and cuts the proe- 

- il:r Zztlz 7~rr7 zit _ _ 1 Is L:«:ne: 

: ill '" : ;- in :li= : ~ - I" is : _1 _tL. : _ l. - 

""t_-::_ 1= 1::;-t^ :■; :lr :; : il'- :li: 

:i — _ : :_ L ill ■ _ '. ----- e-i : : r :i : 

there is room for personal evolution to wort 

: - ' . t- -_. ■ - _t"_ : 1- :: ' r_ ~ :_:! r~:l~ :•- 

zif : -J ..._--: -~- :■; ~ : — 1_r Ln:er- 

- : ... " " . t : - _ - - _ . ~ ~ ? :•: zl is _ r 

Li.5 .- ^ t . -__-- : - :lui: _ :lf ^;:t_-:-; 

._.:.• _- : . . ziz-z ~_t ~_ii_^ :li: :e>: ti:- 

" . liii "_t : :s - . ~"_^:;__ _~ ::~_t-> ~_t 

_" _ ~_t-> : ".. -T : ;y-v : :7f > "/._ is 

Z:::^7_t- ifre: '- ^ .r - i: 7 r-^: 7." .7 
ii ~ :>ez : : is : '_ _"" ::lir^i= 1" is ■_ :: : v.".'." 

■ _ — ri_ :~ -_: — :: : _ - zii~ei .~ -;:t_:7 

. zi t l " : : '_ - : _ 7 : - ';.."_ t ~~- : ~ f : _ : f - ~ : * 



N. ■ i 

sh to be so shallow a th: 

: is - shallow 
a thinker as not to know that it is : the 
most probable hy] rthesis. I" is more likely 

:h than that not 

— :■ y more likely. And - : men 

upon this with more or less wisdom : just g 
men knowing that tc -m.L: will probably 
be foil." to-morrow, make their - 

arations for that morrow, some with folly 
and some with good sense. 

It is not hoped by the -writer that the 
foregoing presentation of the doctrines of 
Original S::_. Damnation, I mm ortality of 
the S Resurre i n and the Beatific 

Vision, will revolutionize the views or the 
character of an; whc may chance to read it 

r is it even supposed that it will greatly 
affect any one: it takes far more to affect 
a man's life than a few words printed 
in a book. Bnt if the paragraphs h 

red tc -Low tha; 3ome >f tie great theolog- 
ical doctrines as to the nature of man. — :!■: :- 
trines from which most men nowadays in- 



58 SOME STUDIES IN EELIGIOX. 

stinctively sheer off as a schoolboy does from 
an abstruse problem in mathematics — if they 
have shown that these grand, turgid, won- 
derful, involved and generally-to-be-avoided 
doctrines, when translated out of theological 
language into more familiar speech, really 
sound very simple and even more or less true, 
then the purpose of this work is served ; and 
if the method accomplish so much, some abler 
hand may take it up and so use it as to bring 
home the truths of religion to the nation. 

Summing up the matters treated of so 
far: we have arrived at the conclusion that 
an Infinite and Eternal Energy exists. It 
is a power not ourselves, and makes for 
righteousness. It is the basis of all things. 
Its nature is something unknown to us and 
greater than personality, not less, so that it 
is an inaccurate but not an unfair use of 
words to say that It is more personal than 
personality, or the only real Person. The 
most logical hypothesis, rising to the rank of 
a theory, is that the essence or nature of the 
only real Person is Love. Man is one of its 



SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 59 

products. Death, to which man and most of 
the lower animals are subject, is an innova- 
tion. Experiment has shown that there ex- 
ists in man a tendency to violate the laws of 
nature, which violation causes suffering and 
death, and these can only be gotten rid of by 
getting rid of the tendency. Experiment has 
shown that to be impossible in this life. Ex- 
periment has shown, however, that it is a 
tenable hypothesis rising to the importance 
of a theory that man exists after physical 
death. It is a scientific principle to take 
that which best explains the facts as a work- 
ing hypothesis. The theories that God is 
Love, and that man exists after death, best 
explain the known facts. Thus the scientific 
sanction for acting upon them is perfect. 

All of which very triumphant logical 
work is not expected to be convincing. Few 
are convinced by logic — at least, by good 
logic. But though not convincing, yet care- 
ful thought will show it to be true. 



CHAPTEE VI. 

FURTHER INQUIRY INTO THE NATURE OE GOD. 

HAT that hypothesis which best explains 
the facts should be assumed as a basis 
for further investigation is good science; to 
handle a working hypothesis as if it were an 
infallible truth, however, is unscientific. 
Thus the working hypotheses that God is 
Love and that man exists after death have 
the strongest possible scientific sanction when 
used merely as working hypotheses; that is, 
when used as guides for action and experi- 
ment. The strictest scientist and the most 
fervid Christian can have no rational quarrel 
in regard to the necessity of squaring all 
action to these two things : that God is Love, 
and that man is immortal. The quarrel 



SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 61 

comes on whether these things are to be styled 
working hypotheses or revealed truths. 

This quarrel is essentially one between 
two highly specialized modes of technical 
expression which are irreconcilable. But it 
is possible to avoid both modes of statement, 
and merely to say that the highest commands 
of both science and religion equally require 
a life assuming that God is Love, and that 
man is immortal. 

It is a further fact that hardly needs 
demonstration that man is not at present 
able to adjust himself to all changes ; but is 
subject to partial or complete lack of har- 
mony with environment: that is, to pain 
and death. Discord with the physical en- 
vironment produces physical pain and phys- 
ical death; discord with that part of the en- 
vironment which we call moral or spiritual 
produces moral or spiritual pain or death. 
This discord is not without cause, since no 
phenomena are causeless. The cause of this 
discord is inherited, and we learn experi- 
mentally that in some cases it is added to. 



02 SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 

It has no technical scientific name. In 
theology it is called Original Sin. 

These things being so, there follows from 
them a necessary inference. The Infinite and 
Eternal Energy, as is well known, has pro- 
vided a method of race-evolution by which 
the cause or causes of this discord may be 
eliminated from the race ; but because Its 
nature is Love, and we know experimentally 
that love cares for the individual, it is a 
necessary inference that there is also some 
method of evolution by which this discord 
and its causes can be eliminated from the 
individual. Since we know experimentally 
that no method is complete before death, the 
inference that its completion is at or after 
death is unavoidable. 

Xow it is the law of evolution that it 
works from a mysterious beginning (who has 
solved the mystery of biogenesis?) by an 
orderly sequence of cause and effect. This 
particular kind of evolution should follow 
the law. There are two ways of bringing 
about harmony of an organism with its en- 



SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 63 

vironment. One is by doing away with 
changes in the environment. The other is by 
infusing new vitality, energy, and power of 
adjustment to change into the organism. In 
regard to man we note experimentally that 
changes in environment are not done away. 
Since, as Mr. Spencer points out, the Un- 
knowable is the basis of all energy, it follows 
that any infusion of energy must be an in- 
fusion of the Unknowable which is its basis. 
Mr. Spencer was not the first to hold that 
the Unknowable is the basis of all energy, 
and hence to imply that fresh energy, vital- 
ity, and powder of adjustment must be in some 
way caused by an infusion of that Infinite 
and Eternal Energy, which is the basis of all. 
The fact is obvious and has not escaped the 
thoughts of men from the earliest times ; and 
it is a point not without its humorous aspect 
that Mr. Spencer, presumably quite without 
intention, follows the lead of both the 
Upanishad and the Old Testament in an- 
nouncing it. In regard to this statement 
as to the Upanishad, see the meditations on 



64: SOME STUDIES I3T EEEIGION. 

Om, in the first ten pages of Max Miiller's 
translation. 

It is, then, a necessary inference from 
known facts fairly called scientific, that God 
has furnished some method of individual evo- 
lution in this life, completed at or after 
death, starting from a mysterious beginning, 
working by orderly sequence of cause and 
effect and infusing new energy, vitality, and 
power of adjustment into the individual by 
infusing into him a greater portion of the 
nature of God, the final outcome of the pro- 
cess being the elimination of discord and the 
production of permanent or "eternal" har- 
mony with environment. A reference to the 
deductions from the hypothesis that God is 
Love will show that the steps in such evolu- 
tion will naturally spring out of the condi- 
tions, and will not be forced upon the indi- 
vidual. 

Lest this conclusion should seem to be 
claimed as a new discovery, it is worth while 
to point out that there are few more univers- 
ally admitted or older. Every nation origin- 



SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 65 

ally based pride of race on the claim that it 
had more of God in it than had the other na- 
tions. Birth was traced from an inspired 
patriarch, or else a demi-god. In fact, if for 
"God" we substitute the phrase "Infinite and 
Eternal Energy," it will at once be seen that 
the present race-pride of the Anglo-Saxons is 
based on the belief that we have by inherit- 
ance more of the infinite and eternal energy 
than have other races. The perception of 
this law antedates history, and those first and 
sternest old puritans who called themselves 
"Children of Light — Aryans," recognized it 
fully. 

Before going further it is perhaps well 
to consider another deduction from the hy- 
pothesis that God is Love. It is that God 
never .alters any action, His own or that of 
any other person. 

The fact that this is a deduction will be 
seen by a little thought. It is merely a mode 
of stating the fact that God works by law. 
Effects follow causes in a determined and not 
an irregular manner. If the final effect is 



66 SOME STUDIES IIST RELIGION. 

to be altered some new cause must be brought 
to bear. The force and exact meaning of 
the deduction can perhaps be shown by an 
illustration. 

Let us imagine a man who has just placed 
the proper proportions of sulphur, nitre, and 
charcoal in a mixer, and started the machin- 
ery. In a moment of remorse he decides that 
he does not want to make gunpowder. jSTow 
he may either stop the machinery or intro- 
duce some new element — say sawdust. 

Stopping the machinery is intended to 
parallel altering the action. God never 
stops the machinery. In other words, it is 
an observed fact that the chain of law, of 
cause and effect, is never broken. New ef- 
fects are produced by the introduction of 
new causes : not by any change in the law of 
causation. It was possibly from an observ- 
ance of this fact, which is a very easily noted 
one in natural religion, that some legislator 
drew the idea of the laws of the Medes and 
Persians, which were proverbially never re- 
voked. Thus when a massacre had been or- 



SOME STUDIES IJST RELIGION. 67 

dered by Ahasuerus for a certain date, the 
order was rescinded, not by cancellation, but 
by command that the victims should resist. 
The massacre did not succeed. 

The working hypothesis that God is Love 
involves, then, the almost mathematical in- 
ference that there exists a method of individ- 
ual evolution for eliminating "Sin" — that is, 
violation of the laws of our physical, mental, 
and spiritual nature, and the tendency which 
causes this violation — by an infusion of en- 
ergy and vitality necessarily involving an 
infusion of the nature of God. From what 
we know by experiment of the nature of 
Love, we know that this infusion must be ap- 
licable, not to a single clan or race, but to 
every individual. Also (see chapter on the 
nature of God) we know that the first step in 
this course of evolution must be made by the 
individual. 

We find experimentally that God raises 
individuals from a lower to a higher grade of 
life by a process of evolution. For this rea- 
son we judge that there is no gap in nature, 



68 SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 

and that this method inferred above must 
follow the law. But if it is a method of 
evolution we at once know a good deal about 
it. We are not at sea in dealing with meth- 
ods of evolution. Our knowledge of the way 
a new quality, for instance, is evolved may be 
called fairly exact. 

The quality first occurs, without known 
cause, in an individual. It usually appears 
in a rudimentary form, but sometimes, as in 
the case of "Sports" or "Freaks," the form is 
not rudimentary but fully developed. From 
that individual it passes, by heredity, to 
others. It is fostered by the environment, 
but transmitted by generation and inheri- 
tance. Before the formulation of the theory 
of evolution the thought of the world had 
recognized this and, as mentioned above, we 
have numerous cases of "Holy Nations" be- 
lieving themselves possessed of inherent spir- 
itual energy and vitality by physical heredi- 
ty; in fact it is evident from what we know 
of evolution that, if the Infinite and Eternal 
Energy is to transmit to us such vitality, it 



SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 69 

will be by the law of birth and heredity. It 
is equally evident, however, that a method of 
evolution applicable to every individual can- 
not proceed by a method of physical heredity, 
which of necessity confines it to a single clan 
or race. We are thus led by the theory of 
evolution to look for some method of gener- 
ation and of heredity from an individual 
which shall be independent of physical birth. 
Analogies to such a method are claimed 
in the combination and reaction of some of 
the unicellular organisms, but a tolerable 
parallel is best seen in the mental action of 
mankind, where we are all familiar with the 
spectacle of the ideas of one man generating 
the same or like ideas in the minds of others 
without physical birth. These ideas influ- 
ence action, often to the extent of the destruc- 
tion or preservation of the individual. They 
are not material, they cannot be weighed and 
measured, they are not subject to exact defi- 
nition. Thus, in a certain sense, they do not 
come within the province of science ; yet the 
experience of generations proves that they 



70 SOME STUDIES rN" RELIGION. 

are potent forces of nature, and with all nat- 
ural forces science will some day deal. The 
propagation of the idea of liberty, for exam- 
ple, has been partially traced. Its origin is 
lost, but we see through all history how it is 
generated in one mind by contagion from an- 
other when the conditions are favorable, and 
how, when the conditions are not favorable, 
the idea is not born. 

The things we do not know about God 
are incalculable, but the things we do know 
have led us to the conclusion that their ra- 
tional explanation demands the existence of 
a well-known method of personal evolution 
much more intimate and searching (since it 
involves Himself), than what is usually 
called "religion," and one which infuses 
energy and vitality into the individual 
by inheritance from another individual 
through a process faintly analogous to 
physical birth, and more nearly so to the 
transmission of ideas. The nearest and 
best analogy to the process was furnished 
some centuries ago by a teacher of Judea 



SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 71 

who compared it to the grafting of a 
branch on an olive tree or a twig on a grape 
vine; by which the grafted part receives a 
certain infusion of the life of the other and 
lives with its own vitality governed, rein- 
forced, and sustained by the vitality of the 
vine or tree. 

There is in addition a matter in regard to 
the nature of the Unknowable which the phil- 
osopher Haegel has pointed out and which 
throws some light on this subject. With long 
and technical discussion Haegel arrives at 
the conclusion — perfectly well known to 
mankind before he reached it — that things 
exist, as far as we are concerned, because of 
their differences. The world is full of a 
number of things because the things are dif- 
ferent. If they were all the same the world 
would vanish from our knowledge — for we 
only perceive things by their differences. If, 
in addition to this, the difference of number 
were to cease there would be only one thing, 
and intelligence would vanish ; for the exist- 
ence of intelligence depends on the existence 



72 



SOME STUDIES IX RELIGION. 



of two things : the intelligent person, and the 
thing on which his intelligence is exercised. 
Energy would cease, for energy requires for 
its existence something besides itself. In 
short, nothing would exist. 

Now the Cosmos bears in it the marks of 
an Infinite and Eternal Energy. This 
Infinite and Eternal Energy, which has 
all things as its product, could not have 
been homogeneous. It must have been 
differentiated in some way, so as to react 
upon itself. Haegel pointed this out. In 
addition, since the reaction of two bodies 
reaches a state of poise, but the reactions 
of three bodies are immeasurable, we know 
that the Infinite and Eternal Energy must 
have been differentiated in two or more 
ways ; it must be at least threefold. 

A different statement of the same fact 
can be made in the language of the hypothe- 
sis that God is Love. Love implies a person- 
ality and requires love for its existence. 
Thus the Infinite and Eternal Love, in the 
ages past, must have composed and existed 



SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. i 6 

between at least two personalities and proba- 
bly between three, each capable of personal 
action yet each of the same essence; just as 
the North and South Atlantic, whose inter- 
action in the Gulf Stream makes Europe hab- 
itable, are composed of one and the same sea 
water. 

This, in technical theological language, is 
called the doctrine of the Trinity. It is de- 
nied on all sides because of its incomprehen- 
sibility; but, when divested of its technical 
phrasing, an analogy for it can be readily 
found. 

No one denies that there are five oceans. 
They are sufficiently differentiated to be 
sharply defined. The North Atlantic is not 
the South Pacific, nor by any stretch of hu- 
man credulity can they be made the same. 
Yet there is a type of human mind which de- 
nies that there can be three persons and one 
God, three beings and one substance, and at 
the same time finds no difficulty in accepting 
the fact that there are five oceans, and that 
they are all one "Sea." 



74 SOME STUDIES I^ RELIGION". 

It is plain, then, that the Infinite and 
Eternal Energy must be differentiated into 
more than two of those centres of activity 
which we call personalities ; although Herbert 
Spencer only reiterated the teaching of St. 
John when he pointed out that these centers 
of activity differ from human personalties in 
being so much more centred, broader, deeper, 
more intensified, that he refused to apply the 
word "Personality" to them as containing be- 
littling human associations which make it un- 
worthy of them. As we have no other word, 
however, and as there is a real analogy be- 
tween the higher forms of human activity 
and the lower modes of action of the Divine, 
the mass of mankind has continued to use 
the word as the nearest approach to the fact 
of which human language is capable, or 
which the human brain can clearly conceive. 

We are led, then, by the facts of nature, 
to look for some process of individual evolu- 
tion completed at or after death, and deriving 
its energy by a process analogous to grafting 
— a sort of artificial yet vital and real hered- 



SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 75 

ity — from one of the three persons of the 
threefold Divine Energy or Personality. It 
will be seen that it is only necessary to derive 
this energy from one by the analogy of the 
Oceans ; for in order to fill a canal with sea- 
water it is not necessary to establish indepen- 
dent connection with all oceans — Atlantic, 
Pacific, Indian, Arctic and Antarctic — but 
merely with one of them. 

The original individual in whose person 
this method of evolution begins must differ 
from all other individuals in such a way as to 
permit to each an artificial, yet vital, heredity 
from Himself — much as a vine differs from 
its grafted branches. He must be connected 
with the Infinite and Eternal Energy, not as 
a branch is connected with a vine or an ani- 
mal with its species, but as an animal or vine 
is connected with its own inherent and vital 
forces. These dwell in the vine, the vine is 
their embodiment, they ARE the vine. Thus 
this individual would be indwelt by, would 
in fact BE, one of the centres of activity or 
Personalities of the threefold Infinite and 



76 SOME STUDIES 1ST RELIGION. 

Eternal Energy. It is noteworthy that this 
fact has been appreciated by human intellect 
throughout all history, nearly every religion 
pointing back or forward to some divine in- 
carnation as a necessary consequence of the 
fact that the Energy, which is the basis of all 
things, is not only differentiated (from the 
perversion of which fact comes polytheism) 
and Eternal, but also Infinite. 

It is worth remark that a systematic ar- 
rangement of human knowledge on any sub- 
ject can properly be called science; the na- 
tures and relations of God and man make 
up religion ; and thus the conclusions reached 
above can be called either religious or scien- 
tific, whichever you please. If stated as in- 
fallible truths they arouse scientific opposi- 
tion. If stated merely as a working hypo- 
thesis, even as the most tenable hypothesis, 
they arouse religious opposition. But if 
stated as the reasonable conclusions from the 
known facts, it is submitted that they should 
arouse no opposition at all. 



CHAPTER VII. 

RELATIONS BETWEEN GOD AND MAN. 

IT WOULD be well to note that these writ- 
ings do not aim at adding anything to 
knowledge. The writer has no knowledge to 
advance, and, so far from being novel, the 
chief deductions mentioned gain whatever 
value they may have from the fact that they 
are the weighed and tested conclusions of 
mankind. But, as a cautious attempt at 
translating familiar human conclusions out 
of theological technical terms into those made 
familiar by popular science, this work may 
have interest to a class of readers who would 
as soon think of reading Sanskrit as theolo- 
gy. It may even be that some of the state- 
ments may strike such readers as novel. 
Some of us can recall the time when we re- 



78 SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 

garded the multiplication table as a new dis- 
covery. The hills are immeasurably old, but 
they are new to each new traveler. 

It is pleasing to note that the scientific 
position that the Infinite and Eternal Energy 
is the basis of all things necessarily involves 
the fact that there must be relations between 
God and man, and therefore a religion. It is 
a scientific principle that between cause and 
effect there is always a relation, and man is 
a product and effect of the Infinite and Eter- 
nal Cause. Thus it is unnecessary to trans- 
late the usual theological arguments for the 
fact that a true religion must exist, since 
science bears testimony to it with all the 
force of an impassive witness. This real re- 
ligion must be immeasurably close and inti- 
mate, for man is sustained in every minutest 
process and action by the laws of nature, and 
"The laws of nature are the modes of action 
of the Unknowable." 

It will be seen that various degrees of 
knowledge of the relations between God and 
man must produce various systematic ar- 



SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 79 

rangenients of that knowledge, or "Relig- 
ions." These "religions" will be true, as far 
as they go, but compared with the full knowl- 
edge of the relations between God and men — 
with the Religion whose possibility we infer 
from science — they will be false in varying 
degrees. Thus fetish worship and ancestor 
worship are recognitions of the fact that 
"There is a power not ourselves," but fail to 
recognize that it "Makes for righteousness," 
or that it is an "Infinite and Eternal Ener- 
gy." Hindu, Greek, and Roman polytheisms 
are, or were, recognitions of the presence of a 
power not ourselves, but of which we are the 
products — a power differentiated into centres 
of activity resembling personalities ; but they 
failed to realize that the power was a unit 
under its diversity, and a short study of the 
Greek myths or Hindu customs will prove 
to any one that they had no suspicion that 
it "Makes for righteousness." Zoroaster 
never discovered that the Infinite and Eter- 
nal Energy was the basis of all things. 
Buddhism is a religion of negation and des- 



80 SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 

pair. That the energy which caused the Cos- 
mos "Makes for righteousness/' that the very- 
existence of the Cosmos proves that the con- 
structive tendencies outweigh the destructive, 
that any personal evolution must be, not by 
negation, but by infusion of energy and vital- 
ity from the Infinite and Eternal Energy, 
all these seem to have escaped its thinkers. 
Mohammedanism is a reaction from polythe- 
ism, and takes no account of any differentia- 
tion of the Unknowable. It will thus be seen 
that all of the great world-religions except 
two — those of Christ and Mohammed — fail 
to take account of all those facts in regard to 
the nature of the Unknowable, weighed, test- 
ed, and announced, by Matthew Arnold and 
Herbert Spencer. They are thus partially 
true, since even fetishism recognizes one of 
the facts ; but their truth is only partial, and 
their conclusions, in that they deny known 
scientific facts in regard to God, may be dis- 
missed as relatively false. 

The best w T orking hypothesis obtainable 
by scientific means as to the relations be- 



SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 81 

tween God and man is this, that there is a 
mode of personal evolution working through 
life, completed at or after death, applicable 
to every individual, and producing, by a pro- 
cess of artificial heredity not unlike grafting, 
an influx of energy and vitality from the In- 
finite and Eternal Energy ; the effect of this 
influx, when unhindered, being the elimina- 
tion of the hereditary tendency to break nat- 
ural laws. The theory as to the Nature of 
the Unknowable, which may be briefly stated 
in the words "God is Love," implies the exist- 
ence of such a mode, its success in some cases, 
its rejection in others, and, either before or 
after death, its presentation in some form to 
every individual of the human race, to be by 
each accepted or rejected. This last state- 
ment, while a necessary inference from the 
theory that God is Love, will be received with 
anathema by many trained in the theological 
mode of technical expression. To such it is 
recommended that they read the third chap- 
ter of the Eirst Epistle of St. Peter, and pon- 
der on the necessary implications thereof, as 



82 SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 

also the statement of St. Paul that the heathen 
are judged by the light of their own con- 
sciences, and the fact that there are just men 
in all races (God hath not left Himself with- 
out witness in any nation), counterchecked 
by the statement that there is no salvation 
without Christ. It is noteworthy that the idea 
of liberty, however strenuously presented, 
does not propagate in uncongenial minds, but 
minds prepared for it make it a part of them- 
selves when it comes. The same may be said 
of this inheritance of Divine Energy. 

A review of the dominant religions of the 
world — all of which are usually looked upon 
as hopelessly unscientific — when occurring 
in a work on that "Religion" whose existence 
we infer from Science, will probably arouse 
amusement not unlike that which comes from 
a consideration of children's plays in a work 
on Sociology. Yet children's plays throw 
valuable light on some social problems. Now, 
since there is every reason to suppose that 
this mode of evolution of which we speak is 
presented to many individuals here and now, 



SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 83 

it follows that it should be the heart or vital 
centre of some one of the world's dominant 
religions. Experiment shows, as every stu- 
dent of comparative religion knows well, that 
in any religion the vital inner core tends to be 
overlaid by more or less formal imitations 
based on misunderstandings and perversions, 
so that it is necessary to compare the inner, 
as distinguished from the outer, element of 
religions to eliminate accidental variations. 
This has been attempted above with the con- 
clusion that all the dominant religions, ex- 
cept those of Christ and Mahomet, deny some 
of those known facts in regard to the nature 
of God which may fairly be called authorita- 
tive conclusions of Science. 

We know that a mode of individual evo- 
lution deriving energy from a Person of the 
Divine Energy would begin in an individual, 
for we know the law of evolution. It would 
form a new variety of mankind. This va- 
riety would in time supplant all others ; but 
between its first appearance and its gradual 
triumph there would be much time when it 



84 SOME STUDIES IN KEEIGION. 

would co-exist with others. Thus, for a 
while, it would be only one of several of the 
great spiritual varieties or religions of the 
world. Examining the great religions we 
find that all, except those of Christ and Ma- 
homet, go counter to definite facts in regard 
to the nature of God, arrived at not from re- 
ligious but from scientific investigation, and 
announced by Herbert Spencer and Matthew 
Arnold; while Islam and some forms of 
Christianity go counter to what we know of 
the differentiation of the Unknowable, and 
Islam and all forms of popular Christianity 
go counter to what we know of the nature of 
God by incorrigible and essential anthropo- 
morphism. The anathema with which this 
conclusion will be received by many who 
have been trained in the technical theological 
methods can only be compared to the reproof 
with which a professor would meet a school- 
boy who ventured to correct him in his own 
specialty. Yet the schoolboy might refer to 
the text-book. 

It is matter for interest and curiosity to 



SOME STUDIES IN" RELIGION. 85 

note the attacks upon anthropomorphic re- 
ligion by those of the scientific ranks in 
whom a real and vivid love for truth has 
worked to its final consequence, and produced 
an active hatred of falsehood. Such men re- 
form Christian thought as the old prophets 
reformed the Jewish religion, but they are 
no more in antagonism with Christianity 
than Jeremiah was with Jehovah. Not all 
minds are logical, some minds are influenced 
by self-interest, and eighteen centuries of 
Christian thought have given time for many 
illogical and even interested deductions to 
be formulated and presented as Christianity. 
Minds which hold such deductions present 
them as part of the Christian faith, and think 
of disproofs of them as temporary triumphs 
of some evil power over the Christian faith ; 
much as the Sanhedrim regarded the logical 
and accurate remarks of Jesus on their tradi- 
tions as direct attacks on the religion of Jeho- 
vah. Christ and the prophets, however, un- 
derstood that they were not attacking the re- 
ligion of Jehovah, but false deductions there- 



86 SOME STUDIES I^ T RELIGION. 

from; while it is to be regretted that many 
scientific men have rested under the impres- 
sion that, in disproving the ideas popularly 
presented as Christianity, they were disprov- 
ing Christianity itself. 

One false deduction presented as Christi- 
anity — that in regard to Faith — has been 
spoken of before. Faith is not some mysteri- 
ous entity, but a mental position necessary 
both to religion and science. Its presenta- 
tion as primarily a mysterious religious force 
is inaccurate. 

A second false deduction is that in regard 
to the nature of inspiration. That the In- 
finite and Eternal Energy must communicate 
with man is self-evident from the fact that 
man is Its product, not a product finished 
and left, but one supported and governed by 
"The modes of action of the Unknowable," 
as Mr. Spencer styles the laws of nature. 
Since thought and intellect are parts of 
man's being, there must be some communica- 
tion of the Unknowable with the intellect of 
man. If these communications ever rise above 



SOME STUDIES IIST RELIGION". 87 

the threshold of consciousness, some form of 
what is usually called inspiration must exist. 
It is matter of interest in this connection to 
turn aside a moment, and examine into the 
nature of inspiration ; not as that nature is 
falsely deduced from scripture, but as it is 
really deduced, translating as far as possible 
from the theological into the scientific mode 
of expression. To phrase it differently, the 
popular theory of inspiration is so widely 
and so justly denied both by scientific men 
and others, that it is worth while pointing- 
out the theological position on the subject. 

Revelation or "Unveiling" is, roughly, 
the giving a man insight into some part of 
the mind or plans of God. It is thus a rising 
above the threshold of consciousness of some 
communication of the Unknowable. Any com 
munication to others of this information by 
such a man, whether in speech or writing, is 
called inspired, and the man himself, by a 
somewhat looser use of the word, is called 
inspired also. The documents concerned con- 
tain occasional accounts of communications 



88 SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 

from the Unknowable which do not fully rise 
above the threshold of consciousness. Thus 
we are expressly told that when the high 
priest said of Christ, "It is expedient that 
one man die that the whole people perish 
not," he prophesied, and did not know it. 
Here was no conscious revelation. A higher 
phase is that of Pharaoh relating his dream 
to Joseph. The dream was a revelation, the 
words were Pharaoh's, the truth was God's. 
The source of the information had not risen 
above Pharaoh's threshold of consciousness. 
In another place it is recorded that the arti- 
zans who constructed the Mosaic Tabernacle 
were God-guided. The term "Inspired" is 
usually refused to their work, however, as 
being work dealing with the material uni- 
verse rather than with the spiritual. The 
phrase, "An inspired candlestick," would be 
as incongruous as the phrase "An inspired 
candlestick-maker. " 

It is evident that, if revelation occur, in- 
spiration follows as a natural consequence. 
It is equally evident that, if the communica- 



SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 89 

tions of the Unknowable with the mind or in- 
tellect of man ever rise above the threshold 
of consciousness, revelation nmst occur. As 
no scientific man, admitting revelation, could 
quarrel for a moment with the inspiration 
which comes from it, the question from a 
scientific point of view becomes an examina- 
tion as to whether those communications 
from the Unknowable which support the 
mind of man ever rise above the threshold of 
consciousness. 

The laws of nature are the modes of ac- 
tion of the Unknowable. The discovery of a 
law of nature is the discovery of a mode of 
action of the Unknowable. The method by 
which new laws of nature are discovered is 
not unknown to us. They do not reveal them- 
selves to all men, but only to men specially 
prepared. They are not found out by medio- 
cre minds but by men of genius, and not of 
indiscriminate genius, but of genius along 
the lines on which the law works. For in- 
stance, a man of military genius, however 
great a general, is not found to make great 
scientific discoveries. 



90 SO^IE STUDIES IX RELIGION. 

The preparation required is almost 
lifelong. It consists of accumulation of 
vast stores of facts already known, and 
of a certain mental transformation or 
"Education" of the individual, brought 
about during the acquiring of those facts. 
This alone only fits a man for the ac- 
cumulation, possibly for the discovery, of 
new facts. To discover the law governing 
those facts requires something more — genius 
— scientific perception — scientific imagina- 
tion working along logical lines — call it what 
you will. Some day, while pondering on the 
facts, there comes either in dim glimpses or 
more often like a sudden illumination the 
perception of the law that underlies them. 
This is formulated, tested, established, an- 
nounced, and the world has advanced a step 
in the knowledge of God's modes of action in 
the physical universe; or else it is formu- 
lated, tested, and not established; and it is 
seen that the scientific perception of the man 
who conceived it w r as faulty. The preparation 
and ability necessary to the discovery of new 



SOME STUDIES IH RELIGION. 91 

natural laws so marks a man that it is ob- 
served that many trained on the same lines 
can tell with considerable accuracy by the 
nature and style of his announcement, even 
before the supposed law is tested, whether his 
scientific perception is or is not accurate. 
The history of science is filled with the rec- 
ord of false theories, supposed to be real vi- 
sions or perceptions of the modes of action 
of the Unknowable. The fact that we now 
know them to be false implies that there are 
true laws which we can, at least partially, 
recognize. Each true law has been formu- 
lated by a man across whose mind has flashed 
a perception of a mode of action of the Un- 
knowable. The perception conveys the law 
and the power accurately to tell the law, for 
we can tell what we fully understand. The 
word "Inspired" is not applied to such a sci- 
entific man, or to his formulation of a law, 
for the same reason that it is not applied to 
the candlestick or candlestick-maker of the 
Pentateuch. 

Now the actions of the Unknowable are 



92 SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 

not confined to material phenomena. "Mor- 
al," "Spiritual," or "Non-material" phe- 
nomena are also based on the Unknowable. 
These modes of action of the Unknowable do 
not reveal themselves to all men but 
only to men specially prepared; not to 
mediocre men, but to men of genius along 
spiritual lines. The preparation required 
is almost life-long. It consists of accumu- 
lation of a vast store of moral or spir- 
itual facts and a certain mental transforma- 
tion brought about during their accumula- 
tion. This fits a man for transmission of 
these facts and possibly for the discovery of 
more. To discover the laws underlying those 
facts — underlying the dealings of God with 
man — requires something else. Call it 
"Spiritual perception," "Spiritual insight," 
"Revelation," what you will. Some day, 
while pondering on the facts, there comes in 
dim glimpses, or more often like a sudden 
illumination, the perception of the law that 
underlies them — the mode of action of the 
Infinite and Eternal Energy which causes 



SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. \)6 

them. This is formulated, announced, test- 
ed, and established, and the world has moved 
forward a step in the knowledge of God's 
mode of action in the spiritual universe; or 
else it is formulated, announced, and not 
borne out by experience, and it is seen that 
the inspiration of the false prophet who con- 
ceived it was not from God. The prepara- 
tion and ability requisite for revelation so 
marks a man that many trained along spirit- 
ual lines can tell with considerable accuracy 
by the nature and style of the writing wheth- 
er the inspiration be true or false, even be- 
fore time and experience have tested it. The 
revelation conveys the law x and the power ac- 
curately to tell the law ; we can tell what we 
understand. Because a man has seen scien- 
tific truth his message is true, but even New- 
ton may have inaccuracies in style and illus- 
tration. The message is truth. The brain 
that saw the truth can tell it. Misspellings, 
misprints, verbal alterations, Newtonian 
English — none of them affect the truth of the 
law of gravitation. If it should be proved 



9-i SOME STUDIES I^T RELIGION. 

that not Sir Isaac Newton but some other 
man wrote the treatise and made the discov- 
ery, the law of gravitation would still govern 
the swinging planets, and the world of men. 
So also if Isaiah's Hebrew proved faulty, his 
style obscure, his illustrations untrue, and 
his book written by some unknown man, the 
inspiration of the book of the prophet Isaiah 
would not be affected in the slightest. 

It is submitted that since the law of rev- 
elation is found to govern science it cannot be 
unscientific, and that it is not unscientific to 
hold that God has communicated information 
of His modes of action in the "Spiritual" 
world to certain men, record of which com- 
munication exists in certain documents at 
the present day. 



CHAPTEE VIII. 

THE EXPERIMENTAL METHOD IN RELIGION. 

CHAT there are relations between God and 
man; that these relations are immeas- 
urably more vital and intimate than what is 
usually called "Religion ;" that part of their 
law can be learned from documents; that 
there is a future life, and that a right or 
wrong use of those relations decides whether 
that life be one of happiness or of misery — 
these things are necessary deductions from 
what may be fairly called scientific conclu- 
sions as to the nature of the Unknowable. 
They are the hypotheses which come nearest 
to explaining the observed facts, and so long 
as they are presented merely as tentative, 
working hypotheses, it is not apprehended 
that any scientific man will object to 



96 SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 

them. IsTay, more, the most tenable working 
hypothesis is that these relations cluster 
around one individual of the human race, 
and energy and vitality can be derived from 
him by a process of pseudo-heredity present- 
ing analogies both to transmission of ideas 
and to grafting. 

'Now so long as these hypotheses are pre- 
sented with due humility, as working hypo- 
theses should be presented, they arouse no 
particular hostility. It is believed that any 
who care to verify the reasoning and the ex- 
periments which lead to them will agree that 
the balance of evidence inclines in their fa- 
vor. Only one thing difficult of apprehension 
occurs in them. It has been found that minds 
not acute apprehend but slowly the theory 
that God is Love, and are prone to surround 
it, when accepted, with a cloud of miscon- 
ceptions and false deductions. In regard to 
all the other theories advanced and deduc- 
tions made here, the reasoning is simple and 
the logical connection plain. Of course a 
deduction drawn from an hypothesis depends 



SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 97 

for its establishment upon the validity of that 
hypothesis; but so self-evident are the steps 
which lead to those deductions that it is pos- 
sible that some readers have not identified 
in this presentation the doctrines of the In- 
carnation, the Hypostatic Union, the In- 
dwelling of the Word, the reception of Sav- 
ing Grace and many others. 

It will be seen that if the root-hypotheses 
are true the rest necessarily follows, and that 
the balance of probability inclines somewhat 
toward the truth of the root-hypotheses. It 
is, therefore, not too much to claim that when 
presented in this way — as a tissue of tenta- 
tive theory and deduction ending in a work- 
ing hypothesis — the main principles of theol- 
ogy are not unscientific. Even this much is 
a gain; for the main principles of theology 
are usually thought too unscientific for toler- 
ation. It is worth notice that upon the prin- 
ciple of adopting that which best explains the 
facts as a working hypothesis, and then act- 
ing upon it, the scientific sanction for the 
Christian position as to life and action is per- 
fect. 



98 SOME STUDIES IX RELIGION. 

The Christian world, however, does not 
present these matters as working hypotheses. 
On the contrary it advances them with all the 
certainty, and twice the assurance, with 
which the scientific world thunders forth the 
theory of evolution. As working hypotheses 
they are tenable, even probable ; but whence 
comes the change by which they are advanced 
as certainties ? Argument, from the time of 
Christ to the present day, has failed to bring 
out any universal solvent of all difficulties 
which might give a philosophical cause for 
announcing them as certainties. Yet either 
there are reasonable causes, or else, by some 
strange alchemy, the whole human race when 
dealing with religious matters lays down its 
human reason. It is probable that this latter 
proposition, while seemingly held by the ma- 
jority of scientific men, is essentially un- 
scientific. 

Now there is a method by which all hy- 
potheses are dealt with and tested. It is, as 
far as we know, the only method of perma- 
nent value. It was announced bv Aristotle, 



SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 99 

re-announced by Lord Bacon, and enforced 
by St. Paul. It gives — humanly speaking — 
certainty as to the matters tested, and its 
name is the "Experimental Method." 

The experimental method did not appear 
in the world with Aristotle; the first savage 
who ever tried two things to see which was 
best, had the idea. It is not confined to sci- 
entific matters ; on the contrary, it is the basis 
not only of scientific but also of religious cer- 
tainty. By courses of experiment — compared 
to which for duration and for number of sep- 
arate experimenters those of modern science 
are the passing amusements of a coterie — 
every proposition of Christianity has been 
tested, confirmed, assailed, re-tested, and re- 
established many times. The experiments 
are open now. Any one is free to try them. 
There are many hundreds of them, each add- 
ing its item to the mass of conclusions. To 
those who have tried many of them, the teach- 
ings of Christianity appear no more tentative 
or hypothetical than any other established 
truths. 

LtfCLi 



100 SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 

It is noteworthy that the experiment 
must bear upon the hypothesis. An experi- 
ment cannot be called upon to settle a ques- 
tion with which it has no connection. Cer- 
tain illogical advocates of religion gained 
great and deserved ridicule among scientific 
men when they attempted to settle the astro- 
nomical theories of Galileo by a process of 
Old Testament exegesis. It is not unnatural 
that certain illogical advocates of science 
gain great and deserved ridicule among theo- 
logians when they attempt to settle points of 
Old Testament exegesis by an application of 
even the modern development of the astro- 
nomical theory of Galileo. 

It is self -evidently impossible to point out 
here all the experiments made. They may be 
found recorded in books of theology and de- 
votion; recorded, however, in the technical 
phrasing of theology. A simple one, which 
«an be translated into popular language more 
readily than most, is that which deals with 
prophecy. 

Take the Christian books. Determine 



SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 101 

the latest date to which they can be assigned. 
If they contain correct predictions of events 
which at that date were future, the possible 
explanations are designed coincidence, unde- 
signed coincidence, happy forecast, interpo- 
lation of "predictions" after the event, or 
prophecy. 

Undesigned coincidence is eliminated by 
the number of predictions. One coincidence 
was to be expected, two are likely, three not 
improbable, ten barely possible, a hundred 
unthinkable. Designed coincidence is elimi- 
nated by the circumstances of the fulfilment. 
If the persons who fulfilled the predictions 
were ignorant of the predictions, hostile to 
them, or unable to control the details of their 
own fate, they could not have purposely ful- 
filled them. Forecast is eliminated by de- 
tail. If a man predict that an acquaintance 
will be hanged he may show his own pene- 
tration; if he add the approximate time the 
penetration is great ; but if he correctly give 
cause, place, costumes, action of execution- 
ers, and minute and trivial details of acci- 



102 SOME STUDIES IX RELIGIOX. 

dental circumstance, it is beyond the power 
of forecast of the human brain. Interpolation 
in the manuscripts is eliminated by textual 
criticism. There remains, then, the fact that 
a man who undertakes such an experimental 
investigation with the same painstaking care 
that he would give to a problem in biology 
will probably rise from his study, as many 
thousands have risen before him, with the 
conviction that the usual scientific view as to 
the existence of an intellect which foresees 
and communicates to man certain future 
facts should be almost completely recast. It 
may be added that a man who will not under- 
take such an investigation ought not, in jus- 
tice, to deride the conclusions of those who 
do. 

In dealing with the Christian records, the 
attention is soon called to an authoritative 
conclusion of Science wdiich is so true, so self- 
evident, so opposed to the false Anthropomor- 
phic or Heathen or Popular idea of God and 
of religion, and so carefully, logically, — 
(and technically) — asserted by theology, that 



SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION". 103 

the misunderstanding between scientific and 
religious teachers as to it has all the elements 
of humor. It is this: that the Infinite and 
Eternal Energy works by law. Laws of na- 
ture are the modes of action of the Unknow- 
able. They depend upon His character. 
Thus a reversal of a law of nature is unthink- 
able. It involves a denial of the character 
of God. It would imply wavering and irres- 
olution in Him who is the basis of all things, 
and in whom there is no wavering neither 
any shadow of turning. Belief in it would 
be unscientific. "Nay, more," add the theo- 
logians, "it would hardly be too much to call 
it blasphemous." 

This being so, it will at once be seen that 
the Anthropomorphic or Popular theory, 
which regards miracles as reversals of the 
laws of nature, is not only unscientific but 
irreligious. When set face to face with that 
theory, and required to believe either that re- 
versals of the laws of nature occurred or that 
the narratives are not true, the natural and 
prompt conclusion of men who understand 



104 SOME STUDIES I1ST RELIGION. 

that the Infinite and Eternal Energy works 
by law is that the narratives are not true ; the 
promptness of this conclusion being in exact 
proportion to the clearness with which the 
man understands the reign of law in nature, 
and the consequent reverence in which he 
holds the intellect and rationality of God. 
Even a superficial acquaintance with liter- 
ary criticism, however, convinces the reader 
that the untruth of the narrative is not inten- 
tional. The quaint and gentle narratives bear 
all the marks of truth except that they seem 
to contradict the nature of God. It cannot be 
that reversals of the laws of nature occur; 
but to account for the evident belief of the 
writers in their own stories, persons who 
think that miracles are reversals of nature 
have presented many theories. They are rec- 
ords made in good faith, but merely records 
of traditions, and garbled traditions at that. 
They are re-edited interpolations. They are 
forgeries so skilful that the men who made 
them persuaded themselves that they must 
be true. They are allegories. They are sun- 



SOME STUDIES IN" RELIGION. 105 

myths. They are moral tales or parables. 
They are written by men insane with super- 
stition. All these theories and more have 
been put forward both by men inside and out- 
side of the Christian ranks. The number of 
the theories bears witness, if witness were 
needed, both to the universal impression that 
the narrators were telling the truth as they 
knew it, and to the irreconcilability of that 
truth with the popular idea of God ; or, to be 
accurate, to the irreconcilability of the theory 
of miracles, based upon the popular idea of 
God, with what is known of the reign of law 
in nature. 

The fact that miracles may not be revers- 
als of the law of nature seems to have escaped 
many who write and talk on the subject. As 
a matter of fact, a miracle is simply a won- 
derful thing; by tacit consent modern Eng- 
lish writers seem to apply the word to a won- 
derful thing done by or to a religious teacher. 
JsTow, whenever any wonderful thing occurs, 
investigation and experiment prove that it 
has come about, not from violation of laws of 



106 SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 

nature, but from an unusual combination of 
known laws with the occasional intervention 
of an unknown law. Our method of discov- 
ering unknown laws of nature depends upon 
this fact ; a very common fact in experiment- 
al science. Thus when Galvani, by placing 
the moist legs of a dead frog in contact with 
both iron and copper, caused the muscles to 
twitch, he was dealing with a wonderful 
thing caused by what was at that time an un- 
known law of nature. The final result is our 
present mastery over electricity. 

"Wonderful things done by, or to, a relig- 
ious teacher probably have no special exemp- 
tion from this rule. They should be the result 
of unusual combinations of known laws with 
the occasional intervention of an unknown 
law. Owing to the scarcity of religious 
teachers of the first class, and consequent lack 
of facilities for experiment, some of the laws 
still remain unknown; but many, unknown 
at the time, are known now. That stock ob- 
ject of derision, the story of Jonah and the 
whale, will serve to illustrate this fact, and 



SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 



107 



serve, also, to illustrate the garbled way in 
which the public repeats such stories. Much 
comment has been wasted on the story be- 
cause whales have throats too small to admit 
a human body; the fact that a sperm whale 
can swallow an ox, and the further fact that 
any one who cares to turn to the book and 
read will see that the record never said it was 
a whale at all, being both omitted. In Greek, 
English, and Hebrew, the record says "A 
great fish." The incident of a great fish 
swallowing a man alive occurs somewhere 
nearly every month. For nineteen centuries 
the problem of how such a man could exist 
for three days or so without air, and in the 
stomach of a fish, was regarded as insoluble. 
It was pointed out that, if alive, he would 
not be digested, for digestion does not pro- 
ceed on live flesh, else the digestive fluid of 
each stomach would destroy the stomach it- 
self ; but that he should remain alive and 
conscious was taken as either untrue, or a 
proof of the operation of some unknown law. 
About twenty years ago we began to gain 



108 SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 

vague shadows of the law. At the present 
day any one acquainted with the laws govern- 
ing catalepsy, especially catalepsy induced 
by terror, will admit after a moment's reflec- 
tion that whether Jonah was swallowed by a 
great fish and lived three days in that fish 
or not, is a matter for discussion and evi- 
dence ; but that he COULD have done so un- 
der certain unusual but well-known condi- 
tions is beyond question. 

The miracles recorded in the Christian 
books, if they be produced by natural laws 
still unknown, or by unusual combinations 
of known laws, are not irrational. It is per- 
fectly possible that they happened. Investi- 
gation as to whether any particular miracle 
happened or not is a mere matter of weighing 
of evidence, and follows the rules of evidence 
applicable to the investigation of any other 
phenomenon which cannot easily be repeated 
on a scale of laboratory experiment. 

It will be seen that a miracle is thus no 
more and no less divine in origin than any 
other phenomenon produced by unknown 



SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 109 

laws of nature, or by "unusual combinations 
of known laws. Any product of a law of na- 
ture, whether that law be known or un- 
known, is in a sense divine, for it is good 
science to hold that the laws of nature are 
the modes of action of the Unknowable ; but 
miracles are no more divine than other 
things. That a man should perform "Mir- 
acles" does not prove that he is a divinely- 
inspired teacher. It only proves that on ac- 
count of inspiration or for some other reason 
he knows much more than his associates, and 
can thus probably teach them something they 
do not know. If anything more is learned 
about his mission and character, it must be 
learned by observing the nature and tendency 
of all his acts and teachings, and the pur- 
pose of his miracles. 

Lest this deduction in regard to the value 
of miracles as evidence should seem to be ad- 
vanced as new, it is well to ask those in sym- 
pathy with the theological method to refer 
to such authorities on the study of miracles as 
Archbishop Trench; and also to ponder on 



110 SOME STUDIES 1ST RELIGIOX. 

the implications involved in that statement 
of the miracles of Antichrist found in the 
Book of Revelation. 

It is noteworthy that the so-called "Ex- 
periment" outlined here is a question of a 
study of writings. For those wishing exper- 
iments of a more vivid nature, it is recom- 
mended that for a given length of time they 
rigidly follow moral laws (such as that of 
telling the exact truth) and note the results; 
or that they attempt to use coercion in re- 
ligious matters and observe its effects ; or that 
they engage in practical philanthropy; or 
that they enter into a course of experiment 
to determine the source of the strength and 
charm of those characters who come nearest 
to successful imitation of Christ. A short 
course of such study will revolutionize many 
preconceived ideas in regard to the assump- 
tions of theology, and will point out, better 
than the most elaborate treatise, why certain 
theological theories, by those who have in- 
vestigated them, are regarded not as theories 
but as established facts. 



CHAPTEE IX. 

THE NEXUS OF RELATION. 

nO ONE who studies religion along the 
lines pointed out in the last chapter, the 
confusion of heterogeneous elements soon as- 
sumes coherence and regularity; but this 
complete study requires a painstaking care 
as minute and strenuous as that needed to 
master the valence theory of atomic combina- 
tions. To those who wish to approach the 
subject along another line, the theory of evo- 
lution which teaches that each new variety 
begins with an individual furnishes a con- 
venient starting point. 

To identify the individual through whom 
energy and vitality can be conveyed to us 
from the Infinite and Eternal Energy by a 
process of "Spiritual" or non-material hered- 



112 SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 

ity, should not be difficult. It is evident 
that such an individual could not remain 
obscure. Either he has not yet appeared, or 
else he must be well known as one of the great 
religious leaders of mankind. Those leaders 
can be counted upon the fingers of one hand ; 
they are Confucius, Gautama Buddha, 
Zoroaster, Christ, and Mahomet. The hy- 
potheses already outlined are inconsistent 
with the life-history of any but Christ. 

The life-history of Jesus Christ is suf- 
ficiently well known to need no review. Some 
of the documents in which it is recorded 
have been called in question as to genuine- 
ness and authorship, but while the details of 
individual records may be shaken, the broad 
outlines remain undisputed. Sufficient is 
known to assure us that if the source of vi- 
tality and energy has yet appeared upon 
earth, it must have been in the Person of 
Jesus of ^Nazareth. As a source of energy 
He was not only the greatest figure of His 
time, but, for that matter, of this time also. 
He provided a process of grafting or pseudo- 



SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION". 113 

heredity, expressly appointing means for be- 
coming "co-heirs" with Him by becoming 
"of one body with" Him. But it is an un- 
doubted fact that He died. Thus it may be 
that He was not that source of vitality drawn 
from the Infinite and Eternal Energy whose 
existence we infer from evolutionary science. 

If , however, it was proven by experiment 
that He existed after death, and that His 
vitality had overcome all elements of disor- 
ganization and lack of adaptability to en- 
vironment, it will be seen that that vitality, 
if imparted to us by "Spiritual" heredity, 
would convey to those who assimilated it the 
potentiality of the same power. It will also 
be seen that the theological dogmas tenta- 
tively advanced here in the form of theory 
and hypothesis, would receive confirmation 
of the same kind as that which established 
the laws of planetary motion when the discov- 
ery of the planet Uranus removed from them 
the hypothetical element. 

It will be noted that failure to repeat an 
experiment has no bearing upon the question 



114 SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 

as to whether that experiment did or did 
not succeed as recorded, unless all the essen- 
tial conditions are reproduced. This prin- 
ciple is so plain, and is so fully enforced in 
scientific works, that it is unnecessary to en- 
large upon it here. One of the conditions 
of the experiments referred to is that the per- 
son experimented on was or was not the 
nexus or centre of vitality connecting us with 
the Infinite and Eternal Energy ; the success 
of the experiments implying that he was so, 
the non-success implying that he was not. 
Thus the non-success of the experiments 
when applied to any other individual cannot 
be expected to prove more than that the essen- 
tial condition of success is lacking; that the 
individual experimented on is not the source 
of vitality and energy for whom we seek. 
They cannot be called upon to do more and 
prove that no such source exists: while if 
used to deny the accuracy of record of a suc- 
cessful experiment it is necessary that it 
should be shown that they were performed 
upon an individual who is such a source. 



SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 115 

When, for example, it is claimed that experi- 
ment has shown a certain point in British 
North America to be the North Magnetic 
Pole, the demonstration that the same experi- 
ments fail in every other spot on the globe, 
merely proves that those spots are not the 
North Magnetic Pole ; while if unsuccessful 
repetitions of the same experiments are used 
to attack the historic accuracy of the records 
of the first experiment, it must be shown that 
they were conducted upon the North Mag- 
netic Pole before any scientific man will 
listen. In like manner, when it is claimed 
that Christ rose from the dead and is there- 
fore Divine, the fact that experiment has 
proven that any or all of the rest of the 
human race do not rise from the dead, can 
only prove that the rest of the human race 
are not divine. If used to impugn the ac- 
curacy of the recorded experiments as to 
Christ's resurrection, it must be showm that 
they have been conducted upon someone who 
was Divine and that he did not rise again. 
What were the recorded experiments in 



116 SOME STUDIES IN EELIGION. 

regard to Christ, and under what conditions 
did they occur ? 

Of course, if the statements recorded in 
the documents are correct, there is no further 
need of investigation. The experiments 
were exhaustive and they prove the case. 
Anyone who will read the accounts from the 
standpoint of inquiry as to whether the med- 
ical tests of death were conclusive and the 
tests of vitality of the risen body complete, 
will agree that, granted the accuracy of the 
narrative, a death and resurrection did occur. 
Before the light thrown upon the problem by 
the theory of evolution was realized, there 
existed a school of thought holding that the 
documents could not be true because of the 
incredibility of the statements involved ; but 
the position is hardly tenable at present on 
account of our increased knowledge, many 
biological discoveries having exhausted our 
faculty of wonder; apart from the fact that 
incredibility has no bearing for or against 
the truth of a proposition, as was shown when 
Montezuma found it incredible that unknown 



SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 117 

beings riding unknown beasts and fighting 
with unheard of weapons should have landed 
upon his coasts. "Such things do not hap- 
pen/' he said in effect, "while messengers 
often lie : therefore this thing must be a lie 
of the messengers." A discussion of the fal- 
lacy involved can be found in most books of 
logic. 

We have, then, to examine the records 
of a series of experiments dealing with the 
vitality of an organism: there are five inde- 
pendent sets of records, four of which are 
bitterly attacked in regard to genuineness 
and accuracy. To base upon them any con- 
clusions involving their genuineness is thus 
unscientific. The fifth and oldest set of rec- 
ords is partial only, given in the form of allu- 
sions. Its genuineness is admitted (the ref- 
erence is to the undoubted Pauline Epistles), 
and establishes the fact that the other four 
were written in good faith ; believed, that is, 
by their writers ; but as to details of the ex- 
periments it is insufficient. It establishes, 
however, that the dead and bloodless body of 



118 SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 

Jesus of Nazareth, with a spear-wound 
through the heart, was placed in a definite, 
localized tomb. Thirty-six hours later it was 
missing. His followers believed that they 
had seen it raised from the dead. Xow what 
became of the body ( 

If raised from the dead, the matter is 
explained at once. If not raised, what be- 
came of it ? The apostles and disciples did 
not steal it, for they could not have done so 
without their own knowledge, and their sub- 
sequent lives and deaths show that, as far 
as their knowledge went, it had undergone a 
resurrection and return to vitality. The op- 
ponents of Christianity from the critical 
standpoint have advanced many theories to 
account for the established and admitted fact 
that the records were believed by their 
writers; the hysteria theory of Renan is a 
case in point ; but the theories all fail to ac- 
count for the disappearance of the body. 

It is evidently beyond the province of this 
work to rehearse here the modern arguments 
for and against the truth of the resurrection. 



SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION". 119 

jSTo other matter has been discussed so thor- 
oughly. No other historical event of any 
age is capable of such moral and legal proof. 
No recorded experiment is capable of such 
scientific proof, except when the accuracy of 
the record is assumed. Doubt the accuracy 
of record of a scientific experiment and that 
experiment immediately becomes harder to 
prove than the resurrection; assume the ac- 
curacy of the records of the resurrection and 
no scientific experiment has greater or more 
conclusive proof. It is plainly beyond the 
scope of this work to enter into an exam- 
ination of the date and authorship of the four 
Gospels — the accuracy of the record. It will 
be seen, however, that any person arriving 
by critical or historical investigation at his- 
torical certainty in regard to the resurrection, 
arrives also at certainty that the theological 
doctrines advanced here under the form of 
theory and hypothesis are really established 
facts. It is suggested that criticism of the 
views of those who hold that they have ar- 
rived at such historical certainty, should be 



120 SOME STUDIES IIST RELIGION. 

suspended until the critic has examined the 
record of the experiments which led them to 
that conclusion. 

Two ways have thus been pointed out 
along which the tenets of theology may be 
submitted to experiment. These experi- 
ments have been exhaustively tried. They 
may be repeated by anyone wishing to do so. 
A third line has been suggested which may 
be summed up in the words, "Let the investi- 
gator place his life, as far as possible, in har- 
mony with that of Jesus of Nazareth, and 
observe the change of feeling and the increase 
of insight which comes from the new point 
of view." It is claimed that in direct pro- 
portion to the thoroughness with which the 
lives are made alike, the conclusions of the 
experimenter will approximate those of 
Christ ; so that, if their conclusions differ, it 
is possible to work back and find the cause 
of difference in some lack of Christlikeness 
in the life of the experimenter. 

This third course of experiment was orig- 
inally advocated in the words, "Whoso doeth 



SOME STUDIES IN RELIGION. 121 

My will, he shall know the doctrine"; and 
such accuracy as theology may have, comes 
from the fact that its doctrines were orig- 
inally formulated by men who had advanced 
some distance along the lines of this course 
of experiment. It is simple scientific fair- 
ness that those who would oppose their con- 
clusions should first try the experiments on 
which their conclusions were founded. 



Wi'l 23 1903 



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